Day out in London: Mayfield Lavender Field and Horniman Museum & Garden

Lovely purple lavender

Us monkeying about in the lavender field

Horniman’s amazing walrus!

Jellyfish! Very cute to look at a distance, not so much when you’re in the water with them

Art display about Brazil’s favela at the Horniman’s Museum & Gardens

One of Horniman’s beautiful garden

Written by Tiara

My parents are visiting at the moment, and while neither Duncan nor I can take any days off work, we made sure that we’re taking them to exciting places on the weekends.

One weekend, when the weather was on our side, we took them to Mayfield Lavender Farm in Banstead, about an hour drive from our place in Battersea. We got there at around 10 am and it was already buzzing! It got busier as the day progressed.. so it’s definitely recommended to get there early.

The lavender were all in bloom, it’s super lovely. There are benches in the middle of the field where you can sit and relax, enjoy the amazing lavender scent around you. You don’t need to go to the South of France 🙂

The farm is only open from June 1st to September 15th,  but they do have a nursery which is open all year round.To access the farm, you only need to pay £1 per adult, and parking is free. There are cafes and shop located in the farm, selling all things lavender – lavender ice cream, lavender lemonade, lavender scones, lavender essential oil, freshly cut lavender.. you get the gist. Click here for more details!

We went to Horniman Museum & Gardens afterwards, it’s somewhat on our way home and we’ve been wanting to go there for ages. Finding parking is quite challenging, as the museum doesn’t have its own, and there are lots of private roads around. We had to loop around twice before finding a spot 2-3 minutes walk away.

I was really hungry when we got there, so made everyone eat lunch at the cafe 🙂 Mum and I had beef lasagnas, dad had poached salmon and Duncan had a burger. Each dish comes with chips or salad, and the portions are huge!

Full up on food, we wandered into the museum. It’s like a smaller scale Natural History Museum, but no less awesome. I found it really educational! It felt like I was in biology class all over again, with the animal kingdom explained to you in a really awesome way. Love all the taxidermy animals.

Entry to the museum and gardens is free, but you’ll have to pay for the aquarium and temporary exhibit, which was on dinosaurs when we were there. We decided to pay for the aquarium (£4.40 per adult, including gift aid), and we enjoyed thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s small and compact in size, but contains a great number of unique marine life.

We went back to the museum and waited for the clock to chime. It chimes every 15 minutes, but at 4 pm, the display rotates. It’s quite cool to see, but we waited for 20 minutes, and the whole display was over in less than 5!

The compound has a number of different gardens and we went to see the dye garden, food garden, medicinal garden and the sunken garden. Lots of benches to sit and enjoy the flowers and sunshine! Click here for more details.

All in all, a lovely day out in London!