Mrs Hudson Says... March 2022

Every month, Mrs Hudson, along with her three children and Dinky the Irish Wolfhound investigate the best family and dog friendly heritage attractions that the UK has to offer.

Read on to see where the Hudsons have been this month!

With the kids back at school, March was a little more chill for us in the Hudson household. With various school clubs and the weather, we didn’t stray too far from home until the weather brightened up and we finally got to have our picnic at Priory Park. We had planned to visit Priory Park in Bath during the February half term, but the weather really put a dampener on our plans. With a promise of sunshine and some warmer weather, the kids were up for the trip into the city, but with one alteration: rather than packing and taking a picnic, they campaigned to get Sally Lunn buns to take away again. Turns out that was a popular choice last time, though I don’t think my waistline would appreciate me making it a monthly occurrence.

Florence did make the point that treats from one of Bath’s oldest houses, did technically count as a cultural experience and therefore should happen as often as possible. She gets more precocious with every passing day!

As nice as it was to spend some time in the park with our buns, it was really not warm enough for a picnic, so we headed back into town and grabbed a bus out to the American Museum to kill some time before catching our train back. All three of the children have finally gotten on board the Hamilton train and are desperate for us to go see it in London at some point this year, so I thought it would make a good compromise for now. At the moment, there is a fascinating exhibition about Native American history which was very eye opening, especially for the twins. We’ll definitely be back again in the future.

It was very quite at Lacock Abbey during our visit. 

The following weekend, Florence was busy celebrating her friend’s birthday, so I had a day out with the twins and Dinky. They asked if they could go visit Hogwarts, so we did the next best thing and headed to Lacock Abbey, which featured in the films. As a National Trust location, parts of it are dog friendly, always helpful when you have a dog that is just as curious as the children. We’ve spent many a Sunday at Lacock, and the boys were perfectly happy acting as tour guides and pointing out all the places in the village that stood in for the fictional areas in the Harry Potter films. You can find the Potter’s family home and Horace Slughorn’s home in the village and Snape’s classroom in the Abbey. Lacock has also been used in Downton Abbey and His Dark Materials – so if you’re a film fan, you have to visit!

Dinky was very happy with our day out!

For us though, the best adventure we had this month was right at the end of the month, when we headed to Cambridge for the Mother’s Day weekend. For my gift, the kids let me choose where we were going and what we would do, even going so far as to write down all the counties in the UK and putting them in a bowl for me to choose one. Thankfully I didn’t end up picking out somewhere too far away! I ended up selecting Cambridgeshire, so we spent an evening picking all the places we could visit in Cambridge. It’s been years since I’ve been in that part of the world and none of the kids have ever been, so it was a good choice on my part.

So, on the Saturday before, we waved goodbye to Dinky as he went for a sleepover at his god-pawrents’ (our friends) and piled onto a train ready for our adventure. Our first port of call when arriving was to check out some of the city’s museums, a particular favourite was a museum of science that we stumbled across accidentally, I’ve never seen Elwood so entranced, he’s still bringing it up now!

We saved the best part of our trip until Sunday morning though. The four of us got up early and headed out for a punting tour along the river which was a truly magical way to see all the sights. The tour had some incredible scenery like the Backs, King’s College Chapel, the Wren Library and the Bridge of Sighs – we’d thoroughly recommend!

From our trip along the River Cam.

Once we were back on dry land, we had enough time to stop off for Afternoon Tea before making our way back home. Now, to start planning for our Easter holiday adventures!