Our writer did a full day out in Manchester without spending a penny on the kids – here’s how
Dianne has written for the Manchester Evening News for almost 20 years across a variety of subjects. Formerly Diary Editor covering showbiz and events in Manchester, Dianne is now Lifestyle Editor, covering travel reviews, food and drink news and reviews and attending many of the biggest gigs across Manchester. Dianne loves a farm shop, and writing about all the great places for families to take children across the North West and beyond.
We did a fully free day out in Manchester – and the kids loved it (Image: MEN)
As many sympathetic adults have started telling me as I drag my two kids around to all sorts of family attractions, we’re over half way through the school holidays now, we’re nearly there.
For any parents of school-aged children, it can be tough trying to find activities to fill the long six week break though, particularly if you’re not wanting to entirely break your bank account in the process.
However, for those of us living in or near Manchester, we are lucky enough to have some world class attractions that are entirely free for families to enjoy.
With this in mind, I decided to take my kids for a fully free day out in the city centre, experiencing as many activites as we could without spending a penny.
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This included lunch – where I managed to find a restaurant that gives TWO free kids meals for every one adult meal which was brilliant luck as I was solo parenting on the day with my two boys – aged 9 and aged 5.
Here’s everything we did, and how we rated it all. And what I would say from the outset is, my kids enjoyed ALL of it, whereas I was casting a more critical eye on things with my adult, world-weary outlook I suppose.
I asked my older son George to come up with his official rating out of 5, and it soon became clear he would give everything 5/5 if he could.
So I had to ask him to be a bit more critical which is why we have the fractional scores below instead. I’ve given my “mum rating” for the attractions as well.
Castlefield Viaduct
Enjoying the high life at Castlefield Viaduct(Image: MEN)
Our day started on a high – in every way – as we headed up to one of Manchester’s loftiest free attractions, to the National Trust’s Castlefield Viaduct.
This is the first time I’ve been up here since the NT took over the former abandoned rail line, and so I was just as excited to see it as the kids were.
And it actually made me quite emotional. Walking the route, with trams and trains clattering along on either side, with towering skyscrapers viewed through the latticed metalwork, well, we could have almost been in New York.
You can spend as much time as you like ambling among the wildflower planting along the route, or pause for reflection one one of the unusual seats dotted along the route (as pictured above).
At the end of the current stretch that has been planted, you can head into a small visitor centre to learn about the exciting next phase of the trust’s plans, while looking out to the rest of the tracks through a wall to ceiling window.
Here there’s also lots of free colouring activities for kids, which my two really loved.
Although George did say: “You didn’t really get much of a view”, so it goes to show you just can’t please some people can you?
Kid rating: 4.5/5
Mum rating: 5/5
Roman Fort
The Roman fort ruins in Castlefield(Image: MEN)
As we were in Castlefield, our next stop off was the Roman Gardens and Roman Fort. My oldest was particularly excited about this as he’s been learning about the Romans at school, and also loves the TV show Horrible Histories.
He was able to learn more about Manchester’s Roman history here from some signs on the way in, and he enjoyed walking the fort ruins.
However, I did not enjoy seeing the piles of rubbish in the Roman Gardens section, plus broken glass and beer cans on the steps up to the fort ramparts which I thought was particularly dangerous given it was a sunny day and we were all in open-toed sandals.
It was so bad I had to report it to the council which I highlighted in a report on the MEN last weekend, and I was pleased that bosses said they would be looking at their cleaning arrangements at the Roman Gardens site in response to my complaint.
Overall, I feel these gardens are a real missed opportunity here, as the separate section of roman ruins (towards Castlefield Bowl) was also really overgrown with weeds.
This is an important landmark for Manchester, so surely more can be done to make this a more compelling attraction for families? Particularly given it now has extra footfall given one of the two main entrances to the NT’s Castlefield Viaduct is right at the centre of both sections of the Roman ruins.
Despite my gripes, the kids did seem to like running around the Roman ruins, although George later delivered a withering verdict of: “It was less than I expected”.
Kid rating: 4.6/5
Mum rating: 2/5
Science + Industry Museum
Spinning around at the Science + Industry Museum(Image: MEN)
It was then just a short stroll across Liverpool Road to the Science + Industry Museum.
My nine-year-old had not yet learnt about the Industrial Revolution, and so this was his chance to see the significance of the city in the Cotton Industry, and he was fascinated by the exhibits and the large Textiles Hall room filled with machinery.
The only downside was that half of the museum, which includes accessing the oldest surviving railway station in the world, is currently closed to the public due to refurbishment and this led to some disappointment from my oldest who said that’s what he’d wanted to see – he was left peering at it out of the windows instead.
There were also two exhibitions on the other two floors at the museum that you have to pay admission fees to get in – a gaming exhibition called Power Up on the first floor (priced at £8 per person), and Operation Ouch in the basement (£10 per person). As we were on a free day out, I had to explain to the kids we wouldn’t be going to those which led to a few moans.
However, the two children did really love the free children’s activity area on the ground floor, particularly loving the spinning seat, as well as the chance to do some weaving as well and plenty of colouring for the youngest.
But the disappointment of the closed sections led to them delivering the lowest score of any of the free things we did on our day out, ouch indeed.
Kid rating: 4.2/5
Mum rating: 3/5
Lunch – Bill’s Spinningfields
We dined in the terrace at Bill’s on Spinningfields where two kids eat free with a parent(Image: MEN)
There are lots of great kids eat free with every adult offers at restaurants over the summer holidays, but not many that let two kids eat free with one adult, which is frustrating for those solo parenting on days out with kids.
But I struck gold when I headed to Bill’s on Spinningfields, which is one such restaurant that IS giving you two free child meals with one paying adult (on weekdays only).
Althought it appeared half of Manchester were also aware of this offer, as the place was absolutely inundated with diners on the Wednesday lunchtime we headed along.
There was no room for us to sit in the restaurant itself, but the front of house manager said we could eat in the terrace area outside. The kids were excited about this, although I did find it a little cold in there if I’m honest.
There was a decent range of meals on the menu for kids, including build-your-own burger, tomato pasta and chicken and chips – and you can also pick a side like carrot sticks with houmous, peas, baked beans or mash.
Each child was also given a brilliant bumper activity book with stickers, puzzles and colouring which went above and beyond really, and very much appreciated.
I opted for a chicken shawarma dish which was nice enough, although the real standout was a side dish of halloumi fries slathered in a delicious sweet chilli sauce – I would highly recommend those.
A hearty adult meal came with two free kids’ meals at Bill’s in Manchester(Image: MEN)
Yes, yes, I know this wasn’t entirely free because I had to pay for my meal, but I mean come on, getting two kids’ cooked meals for free is brilliant.
While the food was no gourmet experience, I could not fault this for value for money, being able to feed two kids for free, while I enjoyed a nice meal myself. So kudos to Bill’s for making summer days out that little bit more bearable for parents.
Kid rating: 4.7/5
Mum rating: 4/5
Piccadilly Gardens
The Piccadilly Gardens play area(Image: MEN)
After lunch we headed on a walk through the city centre, as my oldest wanted to see the famous Post Box outside M&S that survived the 1996 Manchester bombing, which we duly did, and he gave it a comforting pat.
After that, we made the walk up Market Street to stop off in Piccadilly Gardens, as I thought the kids could have a look at the fountain (although it’s currently switched off) and then go on the play area here.
Yes, yes, I know what was I thinking taking my kids to Piccadilly Gardens you might say. But this is a spot that I have fond memories of from my childhood, and it’s one of the landmark sites of Manchester – which should be a safe space for all shouldn’t it?
As you may have already read from my report in the MEN last weekend though, what I found was not exactly a safe space in my opinion – having had to walk into Piccadilly Gardens being shouted at by a man on a loudspeaker making explicit adult remarks, and then once inside finding a disgraceful amount of cigarette butts and rollie ends littering the kids’ play area.
It’s a shame because the play area itself is actually a really good one for kids, albeit it fairly small given the size of the rest of the civic space.
It has an unusual mix of bendy metal play things – including giant rods kids can spin around on which as you can imagine, they absolutely love.
There’s also a snail slide, bouncers, and those fun tin can telephone things where your kids can boom “Hello” on repeat to each other from across the park.
“It was fun and it had a big garden”, was George’s verdict in giving it a perfect 5/5 score. Ah, the innocence of youth.
Kid rating: 5/5
Mum rating: 2/5
Mayfield Park
The spectacular play area inside Mayfield Park(Image: MEN)
In fact the only way I could drag the kids away from the delights of Piccadilly Gardens was to tell them about the “even bigger play area” up the road at Mayfield Park.
And what an antidote this was to what we experienced at Piccadilly. The first thing I noticed on the way in was a sign booming: “Proud to be Manchester’s first smoke free park” and clearly this has paid dividends as the entire place was so clean, and really, really family friendly.
In fact, as I walked in it was like some Utopian ChatGPT vision of family life, butterflies darting between the flowers, families picnicing on the gorgeous green grass, toddlers taking first steps over the little bridges over the river.
I was also pleased to see that the Lazerian guitar arch, previously installed at St Peter’s Square during Oasismania, is now transplanted here, which has become another quirky focal point to marvel at in this splendid park, and which my kids loved.
Naturally, with kids in tow, the ultimate destination was the huge play area at the far end of the park.
It was my first time here with my kids, and they were giddy with excitement when they saw the large shiny towers emerging from the ground, packed with kids enjoying all the slides and walkways within them.
There’s also a rather spectacular see-through slide where kids can whizz across the river (although I’m reliably informed that it’s not that scary as you can only see through the top rather than the large drop beneath).
Couple the great play area with a row of toilets right next to it, and pop-up coffee and ice cream vans, and you’ve got the near perfect park to take your kids on a sunny day.
Kid rating: 5/5
Mum rating: 5/5
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The Cat that slept 1,000 years
(Image: MEN)
This is the big free exhibition inside Manchester Museum this summer, you just need to book a ticket in advance to get yourself a timeslot as it’s proving very popular.
We booked in for later in the day in the hope it would be quiet, but there was still plenty of people there. That meant it was quite busy around the cat itself, which my kids did enjoy meeting, but only very briefly.
I’m surprised the kids gave this such a high rating given we were in the exhibition for all of ten minutes, but there you go, it clearly had an impact.
I asked why they moved away from the giant cat so quickly and George said: “There weren’t any bean bags free and my legs were a bit tired” so there you go.
If I went again, I’d have made them wait a bit longer with the cat as I’m sure a beanbag would have come free soon enough.
They also enjoyed writing a message to the cat to pin on the wall at the end though, which apparently the cat will read when it wakes up in 1,000 years time.
Kid rating: 4.9/5
Mum rating: 4/5
Manchester Museum
T-rex bones on display at Manchester Museum(Image: MEN)
After visiting the cat, the final stop of the day was having a good old mooch around Manchester Museum.
It’s been a fair old while since I’ve been properly round this museum, and I’d forgotten just how good it is.
There’s so much to see that we really could have just spent the whole day here, and how brilliant that it’s all completely free to enter (although donations are encouraged).
The dinosaurs naturally tend to hog the limelight for younger visitors don’t they, and it is brilliant when you walk into the main room and watch the kiddies’ faces as they see the giant T-Rex looking down at you.
But there’s also fascinating exhibits on Ancient Egypt, Sudan andd South Asia, as well as the huge living worlds halls.
I’d also forgotten about the brilliant Vivarium section of the museum, where you can see a fabulous array of colourful living creatures. The kids absolutely loved trying to spot all of the poison dart frogs in the greenery, as well as looking at the beautiful lizards and iguanas.
This place recently won the title of European Museum of the Year, and it’s not hard to see why. It made our day end on a real high with a perfect score from both myself and my kids.
Kid rating: 5/5
Mum rating: 5/5