Family Fun: Lakeland Maize Maze

On what turned out to be the only dry day this week I went with my parents and children to the Lakeland Maize Maze near Sedgwick. We had visited the small maze with my nephew last year so decided to up the ante and go for the big one. The estimated time to complete this is 1.5 to 2 hours so we carried plenty of food and drink supplies (you can buy drinks and snacks in the middle!). You can buy an optional emergency map in a sealed envelope which is refundable if returned unused... There is a safety talk before setting off laying out the rules (no running, no damage, no eating corn etc.) and each group is supplied with a flag to wave in an emergency. Undaunted we set off into the maze with plenty of enthusiasm:

Sometimes it felt like we went on the same paths several times (in fact we did!) but we managed to find most of the different bug stamps to put on the game sheets. We also went under and over the various bridges quite a lot - it is more of a labyrinth than a maze so the normal take all the lefts or rights doesn't actually work...

Showing the scale of the maze

Luckily at several points in the maze are little picnic benches so that you can sit down for a break and give the children some refreshments to keep them going. We kept bumping into the same families going round in different directions so weren't the only ones getting hopelessly lost. To keep the kids going we were all amazed at the vast numbers of ladybirds living in the maze and the different colours and number of dots on each one:

After a while the children had had enough in the heat and we cracked open the map to find our way out. Turns out when we looked back at the GPS plot that we had gone round in circles rather a lot:

We had to bail out and let the kids have fun in the outdoor playground. This has plenty of activities for children of various sizes. The new "death slide" particularly appealed to my son whilst my daughter spent ages on the pedal go karts. Then it was inside to the soft play so the grownups could sit on the comfy sofas and drink coffee. It was hard to get the children out of the fantastic play area and to sample the other delights of the farm.


Eventually we got them out to queue up for a tractor ride and they checked out the Pet barn whilst waiting. The tractor ride takes you across the opposite side of the farm to the maze and there were some amazing views of the Kent estuary and the Helm. I didn't actually see Sizergh castle but apparently it is visible from the farm.

We didn't have the time or the energy to do everything on the farm but I'm sure we will be back again even if just to attempt to complete the maze! I can see why the farm was awarded the Maize Maze of the Year award for 2011.