Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse – Norfolk Museum

Earlier this week we visited Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse. As I bought myself a Norfolk Museum pass this year I have unlimited entry to lots of museums in Norfolk. Our favourites are the Norwich Castle & Gressenhall. Children under 4 are free & children with Children’s University passbooks get in for free so a cheap day out for us.

There is so much to do at Gressenhall; visiting the museum, the house and farm, an awesome play area and the cafe. During the holidays they usually have crafts to complete too.

They have a stamp trail to follow also if you fancy a long walk along the field (although they always allow you to collect your sticker at the end even if you don’t complete it all – as tricky with a pushchair in tow).

We headed straight into the workhouse as it was raining heavily, the museum was quiet and Little K and Big A loved exploring the 1950’s style room and looking at the old television and the games children used to play with.

We then walked around all the old machinery and into the world war area where they watched a video on the women who worked on the farms in the war the ‘land’s army’.

As you walk around the museum there are lots of area which are interactive for the children – dressing up, puzzles & things to touch and feel.

Little K & Big A were really interested finding out about what the children did in the workhouse, the food they ate ‘yuck’ and dressing up too.

We then headed out to where they were doing crafts and attempted to make a corn dolly & coloured some leaves to stick on their big collage ( activities are free with a pot to put donations in ). The corn dollies were made from straws and we gave it a good go to try and create a lovely design with a bit of  helo from me persevering the girls made a good attempt at the professional looking ones on the side.

After creating and exploring we were hungry for a snack, we headed over to the cafe which was super quiet only us and one other family. We enjoyed a cream tea & some mini ginger bread biscuits (these were a bargain 25p). As a museum pass holder I also get 10% off in the restaurants.

Feeling refuelled we headed over to the farm, we were greeted by the lady who worked on the farm she took the time to talk to us about the piglets and asked if we would like to go on a trailer ride. As we were the only people about we had the trailer to ourselves, which was lovely. We saw sheep, horses & some pheasants on the ride around the farm. The girls had a go at milking the pretend cow soaking themselves in the process.  We saw some piglets, chickens and turkeys.

We then headed back up to the play area, they have a massive play area within the trees with picnic tables. This is a really lovely area to explore and climb. There is a smaller section for the younger children which is semi-enclosed ( with little ones your really need a friend or someone on the entrance to stop escapees ).

Gressnhall shuts over the Winter and reopens in the spring so this will be the last visit for this year, we had a lovely time and cannot wait to return in 2018.