Fancy a day out in the beautiful East Yorkshire countryside? Sledmere Maize Maze and Summer Fun is here for your holiday adventures!Open 7 days a week in the holidays, the Maize Maze at Sledmere is a great spot for an outing. Not only can you explore the maze; there are also lots of summer fun activities in the games area, plus picnic areas and a cafe. You can also make it into a full day out by purchasing a Combined Maize and Grounds ticket, giving you additional access to the spacious Sledmere grounds including beautiful gardens, Rare Breed Farm Park, and brilliant adventure play area around the House. Mumbler Fiona and family went along this Saturday to explore…
We picked up our activity leaflet from the kiosk at the maze entrance, and headed past the games field straight for the maze. The maze contains 8 pictures to find (mostly of animals from Sledmere’s rare breeds farm), with each sign also displaying a letter. The challenge is to collect all the letters and then rearrange into a word. The other challenge is to find the hay bales stack in the centre, marked by a red flag on the top – we could see the flag tantalisingly close at many points during our exploration of the maze, but it took us a while to find out how to access it! We spent just over an hour in the maze itself – finding the letters proved a bit of a challenge and I have to confess that we couldn’t find the 8th one, but we managed to work out the secret keyword with the 7 letters that we had found. My 6 year old also enjoyed climbing the hay bales tower in the middle to reach the flag.
I’d been a little apprehensive about how the ground would be given that we seem to have had constant rain this summer so far, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the ground underfoot wasn’t the sea of mud that I’d expected after so much rain – in fact, whilst muddy in places in the maze, it wasn’t too bad. I was still glad of the wellies for our visit, but you’d be fine in trainers on a drier day. The weather forecast was a bit dodgy on the day we went, but we still had a brilliant time!
I’d set my fitness app to record how far we walked in the pursuit of finding all of the clues in the maze, and was surprised to find that we had walked about 5km altogether! Although obviously you could make it less if you had tired legs (or were quicker to find the clues than we were!).
After exiting the maze, we had a great time having a go at the many summer games and activities set out in the adjacent paddock.
Choose from footgolf, frisbee basketball, beanbag toss, table tennis, rounders, footballs and goals, nought and crosses, giant jenga, giant Connect 4, boules, chalkboards and sandpits (in tractor tyres). Lots of fun to be had!
After refuelling with a nice sandwich and pork pie in the Tin Roof Takeaway, we then crossed the road back to Sledmere’s main grounds to explore a bit more. If you have purchased a combined Maize Maze and Grounds ticket, you can also have access to Sledmere’s extensive grounds, which includes the Rare Breeds farm park, the stable block where you can visit the shire horses (including the new foal Henry), and also the adventure playground, as well as some lovely gardens. Plenty of space to run off steam as well!
We always enjoy the adventure playground at Sledmere – it’s perfect for my 6 year old , with a good climbing frame and slides, swings, and a fairly gentle zipline. There’s also smaller equipment for toddlers and a set of baby swings, plus the little climb-on tractor in the farm park area.
📍 Where is it? The maze is at Sledmere House and Estate, a scenic 25 mile drive from York. The maize maze itself is set in fields across the main road from Sledmere House. The sat nav postcode is YO25 3XG.
🕙 Opening hours: The Maize Maze is open every day from Wednesday 26th July to Sunday 3rd September from 10.00am – 5.00pm. You book a morning slot (10am-1pm) or an afternoon slot (1pm-4pm) online.
🎟 Pricing: There are two options: you can either buy tickets for the Maize Maze and Games Area on its own for £10 adult/£8.50 child/£33 for a family 2+2; or you can purchase a combined Maize and Grounds ticket, giving you additional access to the spacious grounds of Sledmere including beautiful gardens, Rare Breed farm park, and the adventure play area – £15.50 adult/11.50 child/£48 for a family 2+2. Tickets can be booked online here.
Maize Maze is FREE for Sledmere Friends Members!
🚗 Parking: Free parking on site.
🥪 Food and Drink: there is a selection of snacks and hot and cold drinks (including sandwiches, sausage rolls and cakes) in the Tin Roof Take Away on the same side of the road as the maize, as well as a small covered seating area with a few tables. For a wider selection, you can also eat in the main Coach House Cafe in the courtyard of Sledmere House over the road.
🥾Footwear: we’d had a couple of rainy weeks just before our visit, so we went prepared in wellies. However, it wasn’t actually too muddy at all, in spite of heavy rain the night before. I would still advise wellies if visiting when it’s been rainy before. Trainers would be fine in drier weather.
👍 Good to know: There are a couple of portaloos (including one with a baby change table) in the field where the maize is situated. There are also several toilets and a baby change room in the main courtyard of Sledmere House over the road from the maize fields (close to the car park).
👶 Visiting with a baby: we think that the maize maze would probably be doable with a pram/pushchair with decent off road wheels (it wasn’t too muddy even after days of rain when we visited) and the pathways are wide enough for a pram with no issues. However a baby carrier would make things a lot easier! As mentioned above, there is a baby change portaloo in the Maize Maze field, as well as a baby change room back in the main Sledmere courtyard.
Further information and links: can be found on the Mumbler Summer listings here.
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** GIFTED/PR** Our visit to Sledmere’s Maize Maze and grounds was gifted in return for coverage on this blog and social media. However, the views expressed are the reviewer’s honest opinions.
