The Pumpkin Patch East Bergholt

This is a small, deliberately old fashioned pumpkin field on Hadleigh Road at East Bergholt, sitting just off the A12 between Ipswich and Colchester in Constable Country. The pitch is simplicity: no booking, no parking charge, and children go free. You drive down a track, park on the left in a field, and walk into the patch.

The pumpkins are grown on the Essex and Suffolk border, and alongside the picking there is a proper set of farm made play kit rather than fairground rides. There is a bale fort and a straw bale mountain, a swing and a slide, a straw sofa, tractor tyres, a tunnel, a tractor and trailer to climb on, a set of stocks and a selfie board. It is the kind of place where children disappear into the straw for forty minutes while you are still choosing a pumpkin.

Dogs are welcome, which rules a lot of larger patches out. The patch asks that four legged pumpkin pickers stay on a short, controlled lead and that you pick up and dispose of all waste.

Be realistic about facilities. Toilets are a porta loo, not a block. Refreshments come from coffee vans that visit the patch rather than a cafe, serving coffee, tea and snacks, and both cash and contactless are accepted. The patch is normally fairly dry but it is still a field, and it recommends wellies and waterproofs for little ones.

Opening is short and concentrated: three Friday to Sunday runs in October, then daily through half term to 31 October, 10am to 4pm each day. Because there is no booking system, the weekend middle of the day is when it is busiest.