Leyburn, The Forbidden Corner Review

Overall Rating

The setting is beautiful and for adults I would imagine it would be a great day out.

No Provision for Buggies, Toddlers or Wheelchairs.

My Cousin Lynne and I are both amateur photographers and love nothing more than taking pics of unusual places and our one year old children, so when I suggested the Forbidden corner it seemed an ideal location for a day out for us both.
When we got there we were really excited as it looked exactly like it did on the internet and brochures. We Paid at the desk and were advised "you may have to fold the buggies up in a couple of places for access" ok we thought if its only once or twice we would manage between us.
We set off into the park and after reaching the first gate, a huge castle with a face we realised we couldn't access it because of the buggies, so we had to walk round on a boring path. Once we had passed the first disappointment I quickly realised this was not going to be as easy as we had predicted, the gravel pathways were so thick the buggy wheels found it hard to turn and pushing it felt like I was part of a rugby scrum. We persisted on carried on through the garden. The gardens were beautiful and had I not been pre occupied with the buggy ordeal I would have loved to have taken some photographs.
The second part of our horrendous experience was when we came to the first set of stairs, these were about 20 or so concrete steps and soooo steep. We endeavoured to climb down them as the woman did advise us this would only be "once or twice" remember but after conquering these steps we were within 10 meters faced with the same steps again leading down to a frog pond. Once again with gave it a go and almost killed ourselves climbing down such steep steps with the little ones. The here's the best bit... We reached the bottom and admired the frog statue in the middle of the pond and it was then that we noticed our way out, It was only up a set of stepping stones up a stream... there was no chance of us being able to do this with the kids and the buggies... Our only option, as we didn't want to give up on the day was to hike all the way back on the gravel tracks, up two flights of horrendous concrete steps (approx 20 on each) and back through to the car to dump the buggies off which is what we did.
So we tried again!!! This time with only a camera bag each and a 14 month old each. We both walked and carried our little ones so they didn't get tired and we were starting to enjoy the pathways and gardens a little more. We ventured back down the windy concrete steps and made it up the stream on the stepping stones to what can only be described as "the most disgusting attraction for children I have ever come across"... We walked through a lovely little tunnel with beautiful paintings wall to wall, this then led us into a dark and somewhat scary passage way ending in what can only be described in my opinion as a devil worshipping tomb, with a huge statue of the devil in the middle and a series of doors all in the dark whilst spooky talking in devil tongue is being chanted all around you. Both ourselves and the "CHILDREN" were mortified!! As we quickly escaped up the next pitch dark spooky stair case we came to a flight of steps which led up to the top and out into the open. This had to be a joke, the stair case was so narrow at the top we couldn't both climb and carry the children at the same time so one of us had to get to the top first so the children could be passed up and then I followed. We were so angry and tired by this point. We could not believe what we had just endured. We decided enough was enough after less than a quarter of the garden and made our way back to the car to go home.
We would not have been so angry and encouraged to write such a blunt review had we been told about the access before entering the park, let alone the devil worship part of the attraction which in out opinion should be clearly sign posted for adult or over 16's at least only as I am sure there will be many nightmares.
The suggestions I would make to the garden that there should be a clearly marked alternative route for buggies and wheelchairs and that the fees should be reduced if you have either of these as you get to see less than 50% of the park itself.
I would STRONGLY advise anyone with young children/Toddlers to give this a miss as it is not a "young" family friendly attraction...