We explore an indoor pumpkin maze near Manchester - on a beef and sheep farm with animals and sheepdog demonstrations

  • last year
A farm an hour away from Manchester offers a fun day out for all the family celebrating everything pumpkin during the harvest season.

Pye Ash Farm near Macclesfield is a beef and sheep farm which is running its annual pumpkin maze event for the third year running.

The family-run farm started hosting its pumpkin maze in 2021, and the event has proven a huge success, with more visitors eager to pick out their own pumpkins and watch live sheepdog demonstrations every year.

The Gilman family has been running Pye Ash Farm since the 1930s. Their indoor pumpkin maze event is perfect for visitors who want to enjoy a pumpkin-themed experience, whatever the weather.

The maze is open Saturdays and Sundays throughout October and Wednesday, Thursday and friday of the upcoming half term.

We went down to take a look and learn more about all the types of pumpkins available at the farm this harvest season.
Transcript
00:00 We're just from a family of farmers. Yeah, there's a lot of them, but my granddad farmed here and then now my dad and then now us.
00:06 A farm an hour away from Manchester offers a fun day out for all the family,
00:11 celebrating everything pumpkin during the harvest season.
00:14 Pie Ash Farm near Macclesfield is a beef and sheep farm which is running its annual pumpkin maze event for the third year running.
00:22 The family-run farm started hosting its pumpkin maze in 2021 and the event has proven a huge success,
00:29 with more visitors eager to pick out their own pumpkins and watch live sheepdog demonstrations every year.
00:36 The Gilman family has been running Pie Ash Farm since the 1930s and their indoor pumpkin maze event is perfect for visitors
00:43 who want to be able to enjoy a pumpkin-themed experience, whatever the weather.
00:47 The maze is open Saturdays and Sundays throughout October and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the upcoming half-term.
00:55 We went down to take a look and learn more about all the types of pumpkins available at the farm this harvest season.
01:01 Since 2021, we've been growing our own pumpkins here on the farm.
01:04 We harvest them, bring them up here so the kids, adults too, can come around the maze,
01:09 pick which pumpkin they'd like to take home with them, but there's also different photo opportunities,
01:13 there's some games in the maze too.
01:15 We've got farm animals to see, face painting, a little pumpkin trail out in the fields,
01:21 sheepdog demonstrations and also an outdoor patch as well, if people would like to go out,
01:27 to see where some of the pumpkins are grown out in the fields.
01:30 We've also got refreshments, pumpkin spice lattes, hot chocolates and then lots of things to eat as well,
01:37 pumpkin soup, pumpkin pastries, pumpkin everything.
01:40 I suppose we're undercover, so it's accessible, it means if it is raining, you know, we can still open.
01:46 But there's lots of other things to do, we're sort of opening the farm up at harvest time,
01:50 so there's lots of things to see on the farm.
01:51 We've got pigs, calves, sheepdogs for the sheepdog demonstration, sheep, chickens, chicks, ducklings, all sorts.
02:00 If you look out into the fields, you'll see the cows, the bull, the calves, lots of sheep surrounding us
02:06 and some chickens, they like to lay their eggs in here too,
02:09 so sometimes you just come across a chicken and some eggs in the maze.
02:12 So I think we've got about over 35 varieties in the maze, you'll see lots of different colours,
02:18 so you can eat them of course too and actually these are the best crown prince for eating,
02:24 they're the sweetest, any of the squash too are lovely to eat.
02:27 And we've actually been working with a local pub restaurant and they've created a recipe card for us,
02:33 so you can take a recipe card where you come and get a pumpkin and it's got two recipes.
02:37 So these have been created by the Black Lion at Cheddleton, a pub,
02:40 so we've got pumpkin curry and pumpkin scones,
02:43 so a lot of people have been taking these to then cook with after they've been displaying the pumpkins.
02:47 Not just families, couples, anybody and everybody comes to the farm, which is nice,
02:52 it's lovely to see people coming back year after year and getting to know people,
02:56 especially people in the local area, even further afield, it's nice to see people coming back every year.

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