On the outskirts of Durham you’ll find millions of sunflowers at East Grange Farm, perfect for a family day out, a date night and of course perfect for those photo opportunities. Everything you need to know about seeing the sunflowers at East Grange Farm is here in this helpful guide.
On 19th August, East Grange Farm opened up its ever popular sunflower fields to visitors and I headed down with my wife (as well as little Evelyn) for a little wander followed by freshly cooked wood fired pizza.
East Grange Farm, based in High Shincliffe just outside of Durham, is a family farm with the family having worked these very fields since 1941. Every year, crowds flock to the farm for their special events; sunflowers in summer, pumpkins in autumn and Christmas trees at, well you guessed it, Christmas. To be fair, even though I live a matter of minutes away, I’d never heard about it until a few days ago and normally I’m on the ball with things to do around the North East. As soon as I saw the huge fields on sunflowers (I’m talking literally millions), I had to visit.
The photo opportunities for Evelyn probably attracted me the most but the addition of live music, a bar and woodfired pizza meant that it was a must-do.
For the photography lovers, the colour images use the Pro 400H recipe from Fujixweekly and the black and white image is my Acros Punch recipe.
THE SUNFLOWERS AT EAST GRANGE FARM
Opening Times
From the 19th August to 4th September, you can visit the sunflower fields at East Grange Farm. Entry is via pre-booked ticket only (prices below) but you can choose between daytime tickets with entry between 10am and 3:20pm or twilight tickets (only available on Fridays and Saturdays) with entry between 5pm and 7:20pm. Once you’re in, you can stay as long as you wish.
Prices
For anyone over the age of 3, the cost of entry is £6. Children under 3 are free! This is for entry into the whole setup so you’ll be able to explore (and probably get lost) the absolutely huge sunflower field and sit and chill out on the grassed area.
If you want to pick a few sunflowers to take home, you can hire secateurs for a refundable deposit of £10 and then you just pay £1 per stem. We scouted around and found 5 sunflowers to take home with us; five was actually plenty as you still have to carry them round with you…
The Sunflowers
The field of sunflowers is absolutely huge. I mean huge. There are literally millions of sunflowers with both walking trails for easy access and mazes cut through the sunflowers. We loved getting right into the field though a word of warning, there are bees everywhere obviously. We took a pram for Evelyn so those with families, if its dry, it is perfectly doable though sometimes it will be a tight squeeze.
Around the field there are plenty of photo opportunities with even a raised platform offering incredible views back towards East Grange Farm’s main buildings. You can pick up a quiz sheet when you enter too and apparently there are questions dotted around the field but we didn’t actually spot any for some reason.
There’s not much else I can say about the sunflowers themselves so I’ve added loads of photos below which hopefully will be enough inspiration to visit.
Everything Else
During the daytime, you can expect small fairground rides, birds of prey, a mobile zoo, face painting and hot food (there is a note on the website that not all may be available on the same days). We visited on the evening which was definitely catered more towards adults (though there were still some with children, us included) with a bar, live music and wood-fired pizza. We went for the Ring of Fire pizza and Our Margaret pizza courtesy of Two J’s Wood Fired Pizza and let me tell you this, they were delicious!
If you’re thinking of visiting East Grange Farm to experience the sunflowers, I’d highly recommend it and make sure you get on their website to pre-book your tickets. If you do go, let me know what you thought in the comments below.
