Saturday 22 June 2013

The Hop Farm, Kent


Over the years we’ve made many visits to the Hop Farm at Paddock Wood, Kent and during that time it’s undergone many changes.

In the early days of our visits it was known as ‘The Whitbread Hop Farm’ with the emphasis on the Shire Horses, but was later taken over by Southern Water, then Hop Farm Trading.

Over the years many attractions have been added, with some remaining (including various children’s rides) and others falling by the wayside (such as the dubious waxworks display).

This year new owners have taken over the Hop Farm, and admission is now free! In view of this we decided to revisit the attraction, picking a sunny Saturday afternoon for our trip.

It now costs £1 to park your car at the Hop Farm, which is a bargain, in view of the free admission. Once inside, certain attractions, such as the farmyard, play area and crazy golf can be enjoyed at no additional cost, whilst you need to buy tokens for other rides and exhibits. These tokens cost £1 each, with different attractions requiring 1, 2 or 3 tokens.

How did we do this?
The best value of these, to my mind, was the Magic Castle, costing just one token per person. The ‘castle’ is full of optical illusions and fun tricks to try out, before leaving via a mirror maze. Kids will love the driving school and giant jumping pillows, whilst we noticed there is now a 4D cinema, though we have not tried this out as yet.

What is really great about the new free admission offered here, is that it’s now possible to dip in and out of what the Hop Farm has to offer, making more frequent short visits to view a couple of attractions at a time.

On the day we visited there was also a polo tournament in progress, which was free to watch. A full list of events is available on the website www.thehopfarm.co.uk

The only downside of the day was the price of the ice creams. A van parked on the site was charging £3 for an oyster (my favourite ice cream), needless to say I didn't bother buying one!

If you plan to visit from further afield, then you’ll be interested to know that there are camping/touring caravan pitches available at very reasonable prices.

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