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59. Fairytale Farm, Chipping Norton


Fairytale Farm is the only visitor attraction in the UK to put disabled children first in its design and layout, and with no pre-booking required.

Children will love the farm, located just outside Chipping Norton. which is a sensory and learning wonderland for all the family.

With its exciting adventure playground, an enchanted walk with a surprise around every corner and a chance to meet some amazing animals - including donkeys, goats, aplacas and rheas - there is so much to see and do.

But what is the story behind it? Although the farm isn't designed to be exclusively for disabled children, as it is open to everybody, the background story of the farm starts with the owners,

Nick and Nicola Laister and their eldest daughter, Olivia, who has cerebral palsy and is a wheelchair user. In their years of bringing up Olivia, Nick and Nicola found that there were very few rural facilities for disabled children and their families.

"As most parents of children with special needs know, much of the countryside is out of bounds," said Nick. "Although there are a number of centres for disabled children, these tend to be institutional and require advanced booking, and most mainstream attractions are not fully accessible, despite the efforts of owners."

Nick and Nicola decided in 2007 to acquire some land and create a tourist attraction where disabled children and their families can spend a day out in the countryside enjoying various rural activities on a site where everything is primarily designed around their needs.

Their vision was to create the sort of attraction that they would have liked to have visited with their own children, which Olivia could have enjoyed alongside her brothers and sister.

It was this final point which was most important as most families with a disabled child have children who are not disabled too. So to have a place that they could all enjoy together was important.

So Fairytale Farm was born, when the site was acquired in November 2008. Planning permission was granted in 2009 and work started in summer that year.

Nick added: "This facility is not a care facility or an institutional experience, but a family day out in the countryside, built around the needs of the family member whose needs are most difficult to cater for, but open to everybody. We have many families who visit us without any disabled children at all, which means that the Fairytale Farm idea is working. This is a truly inclusive experience which anybody can enjoy."

Since opening, a number of new attractions have been added. At Easter 2014 rubber duck racing was opened, where the entire family can race ducks along tracks using water pumps.
 
Nick said: "We have also added Sleeping Beauty and Hansel & Gretel to our interactive Fairytale Street, alongside Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

"In summer 2014 we added Mouse Town, which is a beautifully crafted model village, located in a former stable, which is occupied by a family of mice. This is proving popular with both children and adults."
 

More information

Fairytale Farm
Southcombe
Chipping Norton
Oxfordshire
OX7 5QH
01608 238014
info@fairytalefarm.co.uk 
www.fairytalefarm.co.uk

Fairytale Farm is open daily throughout the February half-term, then weekends to the Easter holidays, after which it is open every day until the end of the October half-term. It is also also open weekends in December for its Christmas Fairytale event, which also runs daily during the Christmas holiday until Christmas Eve.
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