Three Outdoor Places To Visit Near Leeds

Call me old (although that doesn't make quite as good a blog name), but I absolutely love a good stomp outside followed by a coffee and cake in a nice little cafe. I even have a National Trust membership and it's the best money I ever spent (maybe a slight exaggeration, but it was money well spent nevertheless). 

Fresh air, nature and the potential for a scenic view are all good for my soul; I recharge my batteries this way and it really is quite astonishing just how quickly any sort of stress can be blown away too. Most often you'll find me stomping the path by the river near my house with a (hopefully) sleeping baby in his pram, but on those special occasions I actually venture further than that, these are my favourite places to visit near Leeds.

NOSTELL PRIORY // This is the National Trust property that persuaded us to sign up as members because it's quite near where we live and it's so nice (top notch descriptive skills there I know). There's the most beautiful walk around a lake, gardens, a house (although I always find the insides of houses the least interesting part of these places) and a cafe, as well as a second hand bookshop, plants for sale and a huge expanse of land that you can actually walk for free. I'm looking forward to taking the little one there in summer for picnics.

TEMPLE NEWSAM // This is the place that made us want to move to where we live now; originally we looked a little closer to here because we visited and absolutely fell in love with the Temple Newsam grounds. We ended up a little further away in the end, but it's still pretty close and Temple Newsam is somewhere we should definitely visit more often. The grounds are absolutely enormous so the walking potential is amazing; the first time we visited we walked for hours and I'm not sure we even scratched the surface. Obviously there is also a house and a cafe, although we've never been inside the house and there's a little farm too.

LOTHERTON HALL // If you're looking for a full day out (especially with kids) then Lotherton Hall is great. As well as the usual house, gardens and cafe there is a huge play park and an area with lots of animals too (I wouldn't call it a farm or a zoo, kind of a mixture of the two!). They also run special events throughout the year that are worth watching out for; we attended the Christmas one a couple of years ago, which would have been great for kids (but was a little anti-climatic for us!). This is my least visited out of the three, but somewhere I will definitely be heading to more often in the future, particularly with the little one in tow!

I hope to add to this list in the future once we've lived round here a little longer, but also worth a mention are Roundhay Park in Leeds and Pontefract Park in Pontefract (duh) for smaller wanders.