One of the best pick-your-own pumpkin patches in the North East is East Grange farm in High Shincliffe, just outside of Durham City Centre. If you are looking to go or have already booked your tickets, here is everything you need to know about East Grange!

The farm is really easy to find as it is very well signposted however sometimes your satnav will take you the wrong way. Please do not follow the satnav up Strawberry Lane, as this will take you to a different address. The farm is just to the south of Strawberry Lane.

Postcode: DH1 2TB

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Tickets for East Grange

You do need to pre-book your tickets for the pumpkin patch as they are not selling tickets at the doors.

Tickets are £5 per car or £5 per walk-in group. There were plenty of car parking spaces on-site with one smaller field being used which led to another larger one so there was a load of space.

You can book your tickets here: East Grange Pumpkin Picking Tickets

This £5 is then redeemable for £5 off your pumpkins. Se essentially, you pay £5 to guarantee your slot which you then get back in the form of the pumpkins you were gonna buy anyway! I think that is a very fair deal.

With their tickets, they released a batch of tickets at the beginning of September for all their available dates. And then released a top-up batch for each weekend the week before it. So if you still want to go, there will be more tickets released for the upcoming weekends.

Their data for this year are 8th & 9th, 15th & 16th and the 19th onwards. If you book for the end of the month and they run out of pumpkins then they may have to close early. In which case you will be refunded for your ticket.

The patch is open from 9.30am until 4pm so you can book your timeslots within those limits. Or you can book their twilight patch tours which start at 4pm and the field closes at 9pm. Once you have gone onto the field you can stay for as long as you want but you must arrive within your 10-minute time slot!

Tickets are also not refundable or transferable so take your time when booking.

The Pumpkins at East Grange Farm

For 2022, East Grange has doubled the size of its field. A bigger field means more pumpkins! In fact, they have grown around 70000 pumpkins from 17 different varieties.

There were so many different coloured ones, some ugly ones, loads of ghost ones and some adorable munchkin ones too!

I do wish they have put some signs on the various plots to let you know which kind of pumpkins they were. They do have a page on their website which tells you all the different ones. You can view it here.

The field seemed to go on for ages. We were on site for about 40 minutes just walking around looking at them all!

The smallest pumpkins start at £1 with the largest being £12. The largest ones were HUGE though, so if you are planning on getting a decent-sized one to carve for each member of the family they won’t necessarily be £12 each! But don’t forget your ticket gives you £5 to use on those pumpkins so if you just want to get a couple of small ones it’s not going to cost you a lot!

They also work it out based on size but there are measuring signed around the field so you can work out how much it’s going to be before you get to the till.

You can also pay by cash or card at the til for your pumpkins.

What else is at East Grange Farm?

There are toilets here in the form of portaloos. They seemed clean enough too. There is also a disabled toilet and a baby-changing facility too which is inside the disabled toilet.

There are also some fairground rides, a hook a duck stand, some stalls selling food and drinks etc. All of these things cost extra and weren’t included in your ticket.

If you didn’t want to eat here, you are just a 10-minute drive from Durham city centre where there is plenty more to do and you can really make the most of your day.

See Also Guide to Durham City Centre

You could borrow wheelbarrows from the farm which you collect from the car park to help you with all of your pumpkins.

There were some photo ops around the field but I do think this is something they could improve on for next year. I know at other patches there are a few different things dotted around whereas, at East Grange, there were only a few at the entrance.

The most exciting part was the golden pumpkin hunt. Basically, there is a treasure hunt for a golden pumpkin which is somewhere out on the field. And if you do find it, you get some kind of prize! We spent the whole time out looking for it. Apparently, there are a few on the field but we didn’t come close to finding one!

Important Information

East Grange pumpkin picking takes place on a field, outside, in October. The chances are it’s going to be cold, wet and muddy. SO wear something sensible like wellies, and probably a hat to keep you warm as it was pretty windy out on the field.

For weather reasons they don’t recommend taking a pushchair or wheelchair onto the field, however, we had a stroller with us (my niece — I haven’t had a baby and have not told anyone!) and that was a bit of a struggle in some parts, but manageable.

Of course, dogs aren’t allowed on the field with them selling pumpkins which people eat. However, assistance dogs are of course allowed.

Overall we had a great time at East Grange farm and for £5 which we got back to use on buying our pumpkins, it really was a very inexpensive day out!

I hope you have enjoyed this post and if you still have questions that I haven’t answered here, feel free to drop me a message on my socials and I’ll do my best to answer it!

Stay Safe and Happy Pumpkin Picking!

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