Mountpanther's Pumpkin Patch, Clough, County Down

Mountpanther has been running its Halloween pumpkin patch for eight years now, and the 2026 version is built around one idea that sets it apart from most Northern Irish patches: you pick your pumpkin from the field and the team carves it for you while you go off and do everything else. That removes the usual bottleneck of a carving queue and means small children get a finished jack-o'-lantern without a parent wielding a knife in a draughty barn.

Everything else is a farm park day rather than a field visit. Your ticket covers full access to Mountpanther Farm Park, so alongside the patch you get walk in animal enclosures, the petting barn, the reptile room, animal feeding and both indoor and outdoor play. The Halloween layer on top includes a haunted house, a science lab, a Halloween scavenger hunt, a straw maze, a fancy dress competition, a sweet shop, a craft corner and spooky characters wandering the site. New for 2026 are marshmallow toasting over a fire and a scarecrow disco.

The thing to plan around is the ticketing. Entry is by timed session only, either 10am to 1pm or 2pm to 5pm, and the farm is firm that you must attend at your allocated time and should not turn up early. Sessions sell out, particularly at weekends and across the Halloween school holidays, so this is not a decide on the morning sort of day out. Dates are limited too: the patch only runs on 10, 11, 17 and 18 October, then daily from 24 to 31 October.

It sits at Clough, roughly 45 minutes from Belfast, 15 from Downpatrick or Ballynahinch and 10 from Newcastle, so it works as a half day from most of County Down.