Ham House Richmond: great haunted house London Halloween
A favourite National Trust, Ham House Richmond sits beautifully by the river: enchanted according to many and haunted according to some. We visited regularly over the years and Ham House with kids and its gardens’ autumnal splendours make the perfect day out and topical haunted house London Halloween season.
400 years and still counting, the estate is a joy to explore, with its perfect geometry of the Cherry Gardens, wide garden avenues, heritage kitchen garden.
A beautiful ilustration of life during the reigns of Charles I and II, the house is filled with art, ancient furniture and sumptuous textiles.
Particularly fascinating for my 4 years old and I is the library – not just the books collections but the maps and globes at the time.
We are stunned to discover that 250 years ago Hawaii and New Zealand did not make it on the map, whilst Australia was called New Holland.
There’s also the trail that we follow with our 3 kids age 3-4. They get very excited about counting dragons on the staircase, finding ebony wooden silver mirror, statues and paintings.
Next, the gardens are the perfect place to run around. The kids take over, play royals; cook witch recipes with pebbles, sticks and pretend worms; hunt and make campfires. The list is vast and their imagination runs wild – with the autumnal colours and setting out of an art gallery.
We break for lunch at Ham’s lovely orangery. All is home grown produce and yum: tomato soup, salads, mushroom quiches, baked potatoes.
The little explorers go back to the vegetable gardens; we smell fennel and sage, admire the plumply pumpkins, red peppers and leafy salads and even eat some raspberries.
There is a sweet Big Ben wooden small playarea behind the cafe, they get again excited about the bridges to the miniature wood Ham House Richmond.
Ham House London – Halloween fun
Witch arts & crafts are next and we keep busy designing and decorating hats. Spooky tours and tales of a haunted house London Halloween are on for the full week: Halloween hocus pocus 10am -5pm and Terrible Terror Tours 5-6pm.
Ham House with kids is therapeutically zen but also fun – happy half term all!
PS: National Trust kindly provided us with day passes – many thanks again. As usual mischievous kids, pics and impressions, ours.
18 comments on “Ham House Richmond: great haunted house London Halloween”
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Wow! The colour of your second photo is Amazing! Glad you all had a great time here. Thank you so much for linking up with us on #FabFridayPost
Pleasure to link in Su and glad you liked the colours! Thanks for stopping by!
What a neat to visit! Looks like the kiddos had a great time exploring inside and outside Ham House. Beautiful pics. #countrykids
Thank you Keitha! I loved playing with the autumnal pics, the colours and shades are fantastically arty 😉 Thanks for stopping by ad happy Halloween!
Great photos – it looks like fun. We have a house that looks similar near us (Wimpole Hall) Coming over from CountryKids xx
Thank you Sonia! We love Wimpole Estate as well and wrote about back in August! Thanks for stopping by ad happy Halloween! Xo
I have only ever run up as far as the big black gates in the past, though you do get a lovely view up the grass pathway to the house from there. Through your post I can see it is definitely worth going in. The grounds are so perfectly kept and the house full of all kinds of riches. I love the arts and crafts for Halloween.
Thank you for sharing with me on #CountryKids
Definitely worth going in Fiona 😉 The arts and crafts were fun and great for me and 4 years old – I have little skill in that respect so much appreciated National Trust volunteers guiding us through making the witches hats. Hope you had a fun Halloween yourself and thanks for stopping by!
Ham Hose is. It to far from us and I always promise myself we will visit.
Your pictures are fab and you have certainly shown me its worth a visit. #countrykids
Thank you! Definitely worth the trip!
Ham House looks like a fun day out – we’ve not yet visited this one but it’s not far from us. Love the look of the arts and crafts and how fascinating to look at old maps, especially when countries that are familiar names to us aren’t on them! #countrykids
Hoping you get to go soon Louise, it’s truly beautiful and rich in history!
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