Cannon Hall Farm

We’ve been proper Home Tourists these last few sunny days, and today we set out to visit Cannon Hall Farm,the after being struck by their live lambing events as photographed by regular photo blogger Rick Harrison and CannonHallFarm’s friendly, personable Twitter stream.

Regular readers of my posts may know I have a 2 1/2 year old, a six month baby and a husband who prefers not to bump into people I know from Twitter. This pretty much dictates our lives these days, and I’ve become somewhat of a tough critic when it comes to measuring value for money, service and facilities.

Cannon Hall Farm slightly west of Barnsley, was really easy to find thanks to lots of brown signs. Upon arrival, my illusions of a sleepy, romantic little farmstead (yes my brain had not made the connection between Cannon Hall & Farm) were shattered. This was a highly organised, orderly, professional operation. We joined about half of Yorkshire and the amazing variety of pushchairs (no two the same) and headed in eager anticipation of seeing the pigs. (My daughter is sufficiently brainwashed by Peppa Pig so can only think of oinking, Suzy Sheep is a good second best)

As befits us being dopey and not packing a budget picnic, we ate in the well run cafe. I had low expectations based on experiences elsewhere, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality and the service. Fresh, speedy, & tasty. Not cheap as such, but I’d pay £15 again happily. You don’t really care what we ate do you? They’ve got a pretty varied menu, and the portions are very generous.

With my daughter tugging at my hand we hastened on to the new adventure playground, she delighted in the plastic maze, which is said to be the largest in Europe. I feared she’d get lost, and Mummy Pig would have to squirm along the tubes to find her. Thankfully this did not come to pass and my dignity remains intact.

The adventure playground by TimberPlay of Sheffield, to coin a phrase I don’t use lightly, looked awesome. My daughter overcame her fears and abandoned herself for a good hour on a rather large slide, which was a delight for us to see her so confident. Out of lambing season, this playground would keep most children of all ages happy for some time. The sad thing is that it seems so well designed that the excuse of hand holding used by parents in order to indulge themselves, has been made hard to justify. We watched redundantly from the sidelines as she beat off older kids on what became ‘my slide’.

Onto the pigs, alpacas, goats, lambs, llamas, rabbits, guinea pigs. Cue squeals, snorts, snickets, and grunting (that was just my husband). There was a mammoth sow , who looked she was ready to explode poor thing (but enough about me) I had even less desire to see one recent mum suckling her greedy snorting piglets, eurgh! Obviously my daughter was fascinated by it all and could not be diverted. Here’s an audioboo if you want to hear how happy said sow sounded. The lambs, for those who find lambs cute, were perfect. We were tickled by the little black and white (Fresian cow looking) lamb resting on its mother’s back.

I made comment on Twitter that I thought the experience pricey. In retrospect that was unfair and misleading. We could have taken a picnic as many did and sat in the park, we didn’t need to buy an icecream either (glad we did though and would recommend the ginger). The main cost for adults was under a fiver each. Children under three are free. The standards of cleanliness and welfare of the animals seem exemplary. For that alone I think the money is well spent. The new playground and maze were the icing on the cake.

All in all I would happily revisit Cannon Hall Farm regularly. I’m pretty certain our daughter wont give us much choice in the matter. Despite the hoardes it never felt too busy. The one word of caution is that there are not many baby changing facilities, and irritatingly the main baby changer outside of the cafe is in the female loos, which meant a smug husband got to avoid ‘his turn’!

Asked to comment upon his experience my husband declared Cannon Hall Farm to be ‘a bit like the premiership of farm parks. You’ve got the same goats, sheep, lambs and rabbits but this is bigger, slicker, and more professional’ Somehow that sense of professionalism, adds to the experience rather than detracts, even for those who normally like a dirty ole ramshackle bohemia.