English Heritage Membership
We’re a family who loves to be out and about, getting out in the fresh air and learning about our local history. We love a good day out, but these get expensive, especially with a child or two in tow! We’ve spent a lot of time researching and debating over a range of memberships and days out, and creating spreadsheets of costs is actually quite scary.
After a lot of debate, we joined the English Heritage as a joint membership in June 2022. This is £115 for the year, but we had 25% off with our AA membership, reducing it to £86.25. This gives the members:
- Unlimited access to over 400 historic sites
- Free entry for up to six children
- Free or reduced-price entry to a range of events
- Free handbook to plan days out
- Exclusive members magazine, four times per year
- Free parking at sites managed by English Heritage
- Members’ rewards – exclusive special offers on a range of brands
- Discounts at associated attractions
- Extra discounts for members who renew after their initial year
- Free pop badges for children to collect
In all honesty, these seemed like a no-brainer for us! If we only visited one site per month, this was a day out for less than £7.50 for the whole family. If you look around, there are often deals with 20% off membership which makes it a lot more affordable if you’re not sure how often you’ll be able to visit.
Below is a table (I’ll aim to update each time we make a new visit!) to show/check we have made some actual savings by buying the membership. *Note: some of these costs are estimated due to not keeping all records. Prices are liable to change for Summer ’23 events*
| Site/Event | Non-Member Cost (2 adults – under 5’s free) | Cost to us | Savings to date |
| Scarborough Castle – joust | £23 | £5 | -£68.25 |
| Scarborough Castle – knights tournament | £23 | £5 | -£50.25 |
| Scarborough Castle – pirates | £25 | £7 | -£32.50 |
| Whitby Abbey – Vikings | £27.40 | £5 | -£9.85 |
| Clifford’s Tower | £18 | £0 | £8.15 |
| Conisbrough Castle | £15.60 | £0 | £23.75 |
| Bolsover Castle | £28.40 | £0 | £52.15 |
Here is a quick breakdown of some of the places we’ve visited – please click the links to see our full reviews of the location and/or event on our other blog posts.
Scarborough Castle
This is our closest site, an hour away on the train which is less than £25 for a family ticket. We love accessing days out by train – it adds to the excitement for Bertie and means we don’t have to worry or stress about the route, the traffic, or where to park! The castle is a little (uphill!) walk away, but we use this as a time to build excitement and anticipation for Bertie. One time we were a little delayed and wanted to get there quickly for the first event of the day, so we got a taxi which was a couple of quid for about a 5/10 minute journey.
Bertie really enjoys Scarborough Castle and often asks to go back. I would recommend a warm layer – it’s on top of the cliff (an excellent location for a castle!) which can make it a little windier and colder than the rest of the gorgeous seaside location. There’s a gorgeous little shop, toilets, and a small cafe area, but nowhere to sit inside and very few sheltered areas, so if you do go on a cold/rainy day, you definitely need to make sure you take appropriate clothing to keep you all warm and dry.
Here are some of the events we’ve been to at Scarborough Castle in 2022 (please click the links to read our full review of the events):
Whitby Abbey
Whitby Abbey is another of our favourite sites. I have vivid memories of visiting here as a child with school – sitting on the grass at the front of the abbey being asked to draw it, eating our sandwiches propped up against the ancient walls… what wonderful memories to have and to now be able to share with my own children.
We usually visit Whitby Abbey when we are camping so we tend to arrive via bus. This works well for us because there is no direct train route to Whitby and the parking is limited with fierce competition with it being such a popular destination!
In 2022, we only managed to attend one event at Whitby Abbey but it was spectacular! Read more about the wonderful Vikings! here.
Clifford’s Tower, York
We love visiting York – you can read about our other adventures in the city here. We tend to travel to York in the car and then hop on the park and ride (again to save the stress of parking!) which is super cheap and easy – sometimes the queue for the bus back can be long, but buses are frequent and we’re never waiting long for the next one.
Clifford’s Tower has recently had a huge upgrade, and it definitely has a modern feel amongst the medieval stonework. This is a small site, so wasn’t one of our favourites, but it is well worth a visit if you’re in the area – even if just for some of the views from the top of the tower! Read more about our visit here .
Conisbrough Castle
We visited Conisbrough Castle at the end of a camping holiday, so it was a flying visit. It’s a little far for us for a day trip, but it’s perfect to tag onto a longer trip. We found it a little tricky to find, but that could have been my poor navigation skills! We parked in the local village and took a short walk round to the castle. We did see other people in a much closer car park, so if you’re better at reading a map than I am, I’m sure there’s an easier option! The visitor centre here was lovely – there was lots of information, a little craft room, and a range of books from child friendly to full adult historical fiction that you can borrow whilst visiting the site. If we had been there for longer, this would have been great for us to borrow one to lay in the shadow of the imposing castle for a lovely bit of downtime while exploring the site. We’ll definitely be back to this one next time we’re in the area. Read about our flying visit, here.
Bolsover Castle
Another wonderful castle that we simply didn’t have enough time there to appreciate fully. This time we visited on our way to a short holiday – a fantastic way to break up a long journey and tire the kids out so they sleep in the car! There was a decent car park within a couple of minutes’ walk of the castle which was perfect for us.
The site at Bolsover is huge, you could easily spend a day here and not see everything. There is a lovely visitor centre and cafe as well as a castle-themed play area for kids which Bertie adored! There was a bit of a wasp problem when we visited, but it was clear steps were being taken to address this and it didn’t detract from our wonderful adventure around the castle. I know there are lots of events held here, so I think we’re going to keep an eye out for those in the coming months so we can visit again and spend some more time exploring this wonderful place. Read about our too-short visit here.
