Blickling Hall Norfolk (National Trust)

By Linda Garrould

We visited Blickling Hall as a family in May 2019, and it’s the National Trust property from Norwich we keep recommending to friends with children. This is our honest family review: the Jacobean hall, the walled gardens, the Muddy Boots café menu, bike hire straight from the car park and the walks that start from the estate gate.

If you are staying in Norwich, Holt, Cromer or the surrounding North Norfolk coast we highly recommend a visit to Blickling Hall. If you are a National Trust member this is a good way to get maximum value from your membership.

Getting to Blickling Hall

Blickling Estate, Aylsham, Norfolk, NR11 6NF

Blickling is the easiest National Trust day out from Norwich — around 20 to 25 minutes by car on the A140 and B1354. Aylsham itself is only two miles away and makes a good lunch or shopping combination for a longer day out.

Visitor essentials at a glance

As of April 2026 — always check the official National Trust page for the property before travelling.

• Postcode: NR11 6NF
• Nearest towns: Aylsham (2 miles), Norwich (9 miles)
• From Norwich: 20–25 minutes by car on the A140 / B1354
• Opening hours: House 11:00–16:00; Garden 10:00–17:00; Park dawn–dusk; Stables Café and Muddy Boots Café 10:00–17:00; Shop 10:00–17:00; Second-hand bookshop 11:00–16:00
• Admission (non-member, house and garden): Adult £18.70 / Child (5–17) £9.40 / Family (2 adults + up to 3 children) £45.00 / Under-5s free (standard NT prices as of June 2026 — please check before you travel)
• NT members: Free entry
• Parking: £5.00 per vehicle for non-members; free for NT members (scan card at the payment machine to register). Contactless and JustPark app accepted.
• Dogs: Under close control, on leads, welcome on most parkland walks
• Cafés: Stables (hall side) and Muddy Boots (farmyard side) — see café section below
• Bike hire: On-site; seasonal weekends and school holidays — check current times
• Toilets: Yes, including accessible in main car park, East Wing and Farmyard; baby-change available
• Picnic area: Benches in the garden and farmyard; stretch tent seating in season
• Suggested visit length: Half to full day
• Best for families: Year-round — Easter weekend family trails (Easter Sunday 2027 falls on 28 March — see the live countdown), the park cycles beautifully in summer, walled gardens peak May–September, Christmas programme in December

Family friendly things to do at Blickling Hall

On arrival ask the staff if they have any activity packs for children. My two under tens enjoyed exploring the grounds with one of these packs — bark rubbing, using a magnifying glass and looking for insects.

The walled kitchen garden is also great fun. Small children can push a barrow around the garden and we encouraged the children to see how many different fruit and vegetables they could see and name.

My children also love looking in the second-hand bookshop — these have become quite an attraction now for us whenever we visit a National Trust site.

Bike hire at Blickling Hall

One of the best things about Blickling is the cycle hire. We all have bikes at home, but it’s not practical to take them for days out or weekends away. Blickling have expert staff who will find you a perfect sized bike and helmet, and the cost is reasonable for the time you get. You can cycle around the whole estate in about an hour, and we do recommend this — you see so much more than you can on foot.

Cycle hire runs on seasonal weekends and during school holidays; check current times before you set off.

Blickling walks

There’s a good circular walk around the estate that takes a couple of hours — too far with young children. For smaller legs we recommend a shorter loop: walk from the car park, into the gardens, down to the summerhouse, then across to the lake and through to the walled garden, stopping for a picnic near the water. There’s a café near the entrance to the gardens and another by the courtyard with the bookshop.

If you do the longer estate loop, the café and information office next to the car park make a handy start and finish.

The Muddy Boots Café — menu and prices

Muddy Boots sits in the converted farm buildings on the Blickling estate, a short walk from the car park and opposite the Farmyard. It’s the more casual of the two on-site eateries — the Stables Café handles the hall-side traffic — and it’s where most families end up for lunch. Expect hot mains at lunchtime (typically a choice of two or three dishes with one reliably vegetarian) alongside soups, sandwiches, sausage rolls and a well-kept cake counter.

Children’s lunchboxes are offered as a cost-sensible option, usually in the £5–£6 range, with adult mains in the £9–£12 area as of April 2026. Coffees and pots of tea as you’d expect. Indoor and outdoor seating, with tables outside under a stretch tent in warmer months. The menu photo above should give you a feel for the typical offer and price points — it changes through the year.

The honest bit: it gets busy between 12:30 and 13:30 at weekends and in school holidays. Either arrive at 11:45 for the door, or push lunch back to 14:00, and you’ll have a much calmer time of it. Muddy Boots is open 10:00–17:00 daily in season.

Bookshop at Blickling Hall

As mentioned above, there’s a lovely second-hand bookshop in the stable yard courtyard. The gift shop also has a selection of brand new local interest titles, Norfolk history, gardening and cookery titles — useful if you’re away for the week and need to stock up on reading.

Christmas at Blickling Hall

Each Christmas Blickling Hall arrange a tasteful Christmas display, lighting up the hall, the trees and the café. If you’re in the area at this time of year it makes a refreshing change from the shopping. The café is cosy on a cold day and after a walk around the grounds seeing the lights, a mince pie and a coffee will be very welcome.

Related reading

• Is National Trust membership worth the money? — our pillar guide.
• Oxburgh Hall — our family review
• Felbrigg Hall — our family review
• Morston Quay — North Norfolk coast visitor guide

Is National Trust membership worth it for a family holiday?

We get asked this a lot, so here’s the honest maths for a family of four on a week’s holiday, using current (April 2026) gate prices.

Picture 2 adults and 2 under-16s doing a Norfolk break and stopping at Stonehenge on the drive home. Gate prices work out as: Blickling Hall £45 family ticket + £5 parking = £50; Felbrigg Hall £45 + £5 = £50; Oxburgh Hall £35 family, parking free = £35; Stonehenge £88.80 for the family, parking included = £88.80. That’s £223.80 for four visits paid at the gate.

An annual National Trust family membership — 2 adults and all children under 18 — is £176.40 by annual Direct Debit, and it covers every one of those visits (yes, including Stonehenge — the stones themselves are managed by English Heritage, but NT England members book a free ‘affiliate member’ ticket on the EH site and walk in free that way, thanks to the long-standing NT/EH reciprocal arrangement). Sign up online by Direct Debit and you also get a free Guest Pass to share with a friend or grandparent.

On this one holiday alone you’re about £47 better off as a member — and every NT property you visit for the rest of the year is pure savings, with free parking at over 300 of them.

One more budget point worth knowing. National Trust family membership can be paid by monthly Direct Debit rather than in one lump sum — £14.70 a month for a two-adult family, or £9.10 a month for a one-adult family — spread across twelve instalments. That can be a lot easier to plan around than a clutch of peak-season family tickets arriving all at once during the school holidays.

Join the National Trust →

Eating at Blickling Estate

Visiting more than three or four NT places a year? National Trust membership covers entry and parking — and they sometimes run joining offers, so it’s worth checking the current terms.