Watermouth Castle

I couldn't get a good photo of the castle so this is my family having fun on one of the rides. Well once they'd stopped screaming for fear that Daddy might capsize the boat that is!

The reason I couldn't get a good photo of the front of the building is that it was covered in marquees. That was because there was an event on called 'It's our Coast' organised by North Devon Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. There were stands from just about every organisation you could think of to do with the coast from the Royal Marines to the Surf Life Savers. Some of them were interactive for the children and others were just giving out information. We liked the one where you had to identify the trees from samples of their trunks and photos of their leaves. We weren't very good at it though. The presenters of the BBC Coast programme were there too but we didn't get to see them - by then we were too busy inside the castle grounds.

Watermouth Castle is a Family Theme Park. Inside are lots of displays about life in the building during Victorian times, as well as a model train set, some very old but playable amuesment slot machines, a scary dungeon and a great set of fairground mirrors.

In the gardens behind the castle there is even more to do. The grounds have been divided into zones named Merrygoland, Gnomeland and Adventureland. In these you will find wet rides, fairground rides, adventure golf, a maze (strangely with no centre), Mystical Water Gardens, a shadow room, a very long tube slide and lots of small fat men in funny hats (they're mostly all plastic too). We were there for nearly three hours today and didn't have time to do all of it. The bargain of the day was that entry was free, although we did have to pay �3 per child for unlimited access to the rides. Normally it's �10 for adults, �8.50 for children. If you're interested you'll find it on the coast road between Ilfracombe and Combe Martin.