Day Trips from Notting Hill: Pumpkin Picking at Cammas Hall Farm

This past weekend – when the weather was still rather glorious – I paid a little visit to the Halloween Pumpkin Patch at Cammas Hall Farm in Essex. The late summer weather provided quite an interesting contrast to the spooky goings on and the

It was actually my second visit to Cammas Hall Farm, having previously visited in 2021. And my, their Pumpkin Patch and Halloween celebrations have grown in two years! The wicked walkways are much longer, with two large tunnels to walk through. This time round, there’s even a spooky tunnel aimed at those aged 12+ as the content is more scary than simple ghosts and ghouls.

Rather spectacularly, they have a Pumpcano this time round. A pump-what? Essentially, a volcano “built” out of pumpkins. It even erupts fire – really! It does look rather amazing in person and is a great backdrop for your photos.

Of course, everyone comes for the pumpkins and they have a lovely selection of different types of pumpkins and squashes on their fields. The pumpkins have all been laid out neatly, grouped together by colour. On one hand, this is a little artificially stylised but on the other, it does make for an easy walk around the pumpkins to select the ones you want to take home. And of course, this also makes for great photos! (Pumpkin patches are all about the photos, aren’t they?!) And this pumpkin organisation certainly seems to excite children, with the littlest ones delighting in sitting on the different sizes and the older ones planning which ones they’re going to take home.

There were plenty of trolleys on hand (not the case in some other patches I’ve been to) to cart your pumpkin choices and kids around – for kids always seem to end up in the trolley at the end of the visit.

We choose two medium-sized pumpkins, a small one and what to me looked like an octopus squash (but is actually called an orbis mix) and our haul came to £9.51 which I think is pretty reasonable for a pumpkin patch. We didn’t opt for a large pumpkin for carving as we visited so far in advance of actual Halloween and I wasn’t sure it would last until then – but Cammas Hall of course had plenty.

In addition to the pumpkin patch there’s the regular Cammas Hall farm shop and cafe, with plenty of indoor and outdoor seating. There’s a playground and piles of tyres for kids to play in and on, and also a small area that houses some animals – cute guinea pigs and a rather beautiful owl. Two years we indulged in some wonderfully decorated hot chocolates (which is normally a must); this time around, because of the warm weather, we went for ice creams.

All in all, Cammas Hall is a very well organised pumpkin patch, good value (for entry and for the pumpkins) and I’d certainly recommend it as a day trip!

Tickets for the Halloween Pumpkin Patch at Cammas Hall Farm

The pumpkin patch is open daily from now until 29th October (not on Monday 16th October) and costs £4 – £6 depending on the day you go. Children 2 and under go free. Tickets can be booked at www.cammashall.co.uk/events/halloween2023.