It’s the perfect time to visit some of the best new attractions that have opened across the UK. Here’s how to brighten up these dark late-December days
The Battersea power station redevelopment, which opened in October, now has London’s newest ice-skating arena. Glide, the capital’s only riverside rink, has three interconnected skating areas around a 10-metre (30ft) Christmas tree. There is a rinkside bar serving mulled wine and hot chocolate; street-food trucks and huts dishing up hog roasts and fondues; and a vintage fun fair. The power station also has a Christmas trail with giant baubles and candy canes.
Until 8 January, from £8 children/£12 adults/£36 families
This “amazement park”, which opened in the summer, is a mashup of an art gallery, theme park and film set. Artists, videographers and robotics experts have collaborated to make an immersive experience with 27 different environments, such as secret passageways, hidden forests and ice caves. Visitors enter a portal to a parallel dimension, emerging in an abandoned factory that is now home to alchemists and scientists who are trying to save the world.
£12.50 children/£18.50 adults
Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire reopened in October as the Children’s Country House – the first stately home aimed at kids. The National Trust worked with 100 children to make the hall fun and interactive, so now visitors can create their own portraits in the picture gallery, dance and sing in the saloon and curl up with a book in the library. There is also an evacuee-themed escape room, a revamped museum of childhood and gardens with new play and picnic areas.
£11 children/£22 adults/£55 families
Culture Creative, which creates illuminated trails each Christmas at attractions including Kew Gardens, Blenheim Palace and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, has three new trails this winter. One is in the parkland and gardens of Hatfield Park, Hertfordshire; another is in the moated grounds of Leeds Castle, Kent; and a third is in the 280-hectare Roundhay Park in Leeds. All are set to music and feature flickering fire gardens, cathedrals of light and glowing installations such as giant floating water lilies.
From £15 children/£19.50 adults/£70 families, till 31 December/1 January
Designed for children under 15, Eureka!, which opened on the Wirral in November, is a museum aiming to bring science, technology, engineering and maths to life. Its main zones are Bodies, with a supersized brain and a walk-through pair of lungs on display; Home, exploring how things around the house work; and Nature, looking at solutions to big environmental problems. Mersey Ferries is offering museum-goers 20% off river cruise tickets until 23 February, so families can combine a visit with a hop-on, hop-off boat trip from Liverpool.
From £6.95 children/£15.95 adults, closed 1 January
