Family visit to Batemans - National Trust

Back in February, we bought a family membership to the National Trust and we have been enjoying some days out together exploring our local area. This time we headed to Batemans, which was the home of the Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling. We went there purely on location as it is pretty close to our home and we only had about 3 or 4 hours all in, I have to be honest and say we did not expect it to thrill the children as looking at the National Trust web pages it appeared to have less on offer for children than many of the national trust properties, no child-specific activity/ trail or play area available.

I'm pleased to say though that even on a regular day our 6 and 10-year-old kids had a good time. I really love that all these kind of places we are visiting are not only teaching our kids some valuable history but also giving them precious lessons in making their own fun, finding the beauty in nature and being quiet, calm and respectful in historic places.

I do think that pictures speak a thousand words, so take a look at this stunning property, gardens and mill -

The staff in the mill were really good at chatting to the kids and explaining the processes and how things would have worked in years gone by.

So much space to walk, run and explore. I just loved all the greenery -

I often think it is when you allow children time to just be that they have the most fun, whilst we sat and had coffee and I photographed some birds the kids ran off to play a type of charades games and it was so nice to watch them together giggling.

and also to witness their companionable silence as they watched the fish jumping out the water -

We had a super family day at Batemans and I'm sure we will be back again in the summer to take one of the many country walks.

We also visited Batemans in 2017 for a WWI themed weekend, which was amazing and for a Christmas family visit in 2020.

Check out all our other National Trust reviews over here.