Longleat

About this place

At Longleat you drive your hire car past lions watching you through the windscreen, then through another gate where monkeys clamber onto the bonnet and test your wing mirrors. This was the first drive-through safari park outside Africa, opened in 1966 in the grounds of an Elizabethan house built between 1568 and 1580 that the same Thynn family, the Marquesses of Bath, still live in. The house was also the first stately home in Britain to open to the public on a commercial basis, in 1949, and the story goes that the Lord directed traffic while the Lady took the money. What you get today is an odd but very workable hybrid: a full European-standard safari day with a historic house, a maze and a boat trip on the same estate. The day ticket covers the drive-through safari (lions, tigers, giraffes, zebras and rhino on a loop that takes around an hour and a half depending on traffic), a free-flow tour of the ground floor of the house, the boat safari around a lake with sea lions, hippos and gorillas on an island, the hedge maze billed as the longest in the world with about 2.7 km of paths, and a large adventure playground. The guided tour that goes up to the first floor is a separate charge, runs hourly from noon to 16:00, and is only worth it if English history is your thing; children will not last it. Plan a full day from the 10:00 opening to closing time, and note that last entry to the safari is normally 16:00; anything under five hours is a waste of the ticket. The thing Gulf visitors most need to know: the safari is done in your own car, the park does not lend you one, and it accepts no liability for what the monkeys do to mirrors, wipers or parking sensors. If you are nervous about a rental, a signposted bypass lane skips the monkey enclosure entirely, or you can ride the air-conditioned Safari Bus for about £11 a head, which is also the only option if you arrive by train; departures are limited (typically 10:15 and 13:45), so book it ahead. Soft-top cars, motorbikes and bicycles are not allowed into the safari at all. The season runs from the end of January to the first of November, with scattered midweek closures in February, March and October; from early November to early January the estate turns into the Festival of Light, giant Chinese lanterns opening in the afternoon and running into the evening, while the safari effectively shuts as the light goes. It is not cheap: from roughly £40 per adult and £30 per child aged 3 to 15 when booked by midnight the day before, with dynamic pricing pushing peak dates and special events higher, and more again on the gate. Tickets are dated, so pick your day in advance, and avoid the July and August peak days if you can, because the queue of cars at the lion gate can stretch a long way. From Bath it is about 40 to 45 minutes by car on the A36 then the A362 between Warminster and Frome, with plenty of free parking. By train: Bath Spa to Warminster in around half an hour then a taxi for the 8 km, or to Frome and a similar taxi. Pushchairs cope easily everywhere and the ground is mostly level, but bring a rain jacket even in summer; the estate is completely exposed.