Pick Your Own Pumpkins at Battlefield 1403

Free entry is the headline. The patch is in the field directly behind the farm shop, there is nothing to book and nothing to pay at the gate, and you settle up only for the pumpkins you pick. For a family who are not sure how long a toddler will last, that takes most of the risk out of the trip.

The farm grows its own, and says it has planted a great variety of shapes, sizes and colours this year. Picking runs all day, every day through October from 3 October, during the site's ordinary opening hours, so it fits into a Saturday morning rather than needing a whole afternoon set aside for it.

On the busier dates the Tack Room opens from 10am to 4pm with children's crafts and activities, and space to carve what you have picked. Those dates are 3 and 4 October, 10 and 11 October, and then daily from 17 October for half term. Archie Sparrow's nature trail runs a Halloween themed word puzzle across the same period.

There is more to the site than the field. A licensed cafe serves homemade fresh food, there is a butchery and a deli alongside the farm shop, and an exhibition covers the Battle of Shrewsbury of 1403 that the place is named for. Wellies are worth packing, because the patch is a working field.