On the weekend we headed to Church Farm in Ardeley, Hertfordshire for their new Teddy Bear Surprise trail.
A brief overview of The Church Farm is that they are a not-for-profit farm, food, care and education enterprise. They offer a fully functional farm with several different farm animals, such as pigs, cows, geese, goats, sheep, chickens and rabbits.
The farm is open daily to the public and they grow and produce fruit, vegetable and meats that they also sell. This is sold through the onsite café, the Jolly Waggnoer Pub (right by the farm) and the food box delivery service which they also offer.
We purchased tickets for entrance to the farm, the Teddy’s Big Surprise and a bag of animal feed, which we thought was a good price.
We arrived on time for our Teddy’s Surprise slot and were greeted by a member of staff that gave us all the information about the day ahead, what we could expect and the best way to navigate around the huge area. So we headed straight to the Teddy area, which was situated in a beautiful apple blossom orchard. Ita was so excited as we passed several of the farm animals such as the geese, goats, sheep and Ita’s favourite for the day, the pigs and piglets.
As we headed through to the apple orchard, we were met with the first Teddy Bear, they gave a workbook and some information about the experience ahead. There were Teddy Bears everywhere, we spotted bears playing and having their picnics, playing chess, hanging from trees so there are untold amounts of photo opportunities.
We were met with a number of teddy’s that needed our help with counting bears in trees, nursery rhymes and helping the bears go to sleep. I must say, the bears were so good at entertaining us and Ita and made the experience so much more enjoyable. Once all the tasks were complete, we headed to the final gazebo were Ita could pick and choose her choice of toy.
The Teddy Big Surprise is running every Saturday and Sunday from 17th April until the 9th May, and all children that come in disguise, they will receive a rosette.
Having checked and been advised by a lovely follower on social media, all children (even those under 1 years) require a ticket for this which seems a little unreasonable.
https://churchfarmardeley.checkfront.co.uk/reserve/?item_id=452
We then went back on ourselves and having picked pig feed at the beginning of our visit, we went around looking at the cute piglets. Ita really enjoyed seeing them interact with each other and the different sizes of all of them.
The Church Farm offer other activities when you visit, one of them is to see their all new Farm Fairy Trail which comes with an activity booklet to complete. This area is really well made, with a couple playhouses, rabbits and lots of different fairies to spot and read about.
Another activity you can pre-book is the Lamb Bottle Feeding which I know we would have all enjoyed and is available for people of all ages and is such a unique and amazing experience to have.
Finally you can join in with the egg collecting on the farm. You can help collect the eggs from over 300 free range hens and then take them home which I think is another amazing experience.
Overall, we had a really enjoyable morning at The Church Farm and would highly recommend the Teddy’s Big Surprise experience. All the information you need can be found here:
https://www.churchfarmardeley.co.uk/
Garcia Family UK 