Indoor Activities in Taunton

Museum of Somerset is the broadest of the local entries and the one most likely to have something aimed at children specifically, though what that is changes with the programme. County museums work best when a family goes in with one thing they want to find rather than an intention to see the lot. Somerset Cricket Museum is much narrower and rewards a child who already cares about the game.

Bishops Lydeard Mill and Sheppys Cider Farm and Museum each carry an outdoor flag as well, and both are working sites rather than displays behind glass. That is the appeal - machinery, smells, things actually happening - and it is also the caution, since working sites set their own rules about where children can go and what they can touch. Check what is open before setting out; small sites of this kind are the ones most worth a phone call.

Hollywood Bowl Taunton and Continue Arcades Taunton are the two entries with no educational pretensions whatsoever, and there are days when that is precisely the requirement. Both are recorded as indoor only. Inspired sits between the two camps, an activity centre where children do something with their hands without anybody having to call it a lesson.

Three of the ten log outdoor space alongside indoor, Hestercombe Gardens among them, so those are the entries that let a family step outside without the visit ending. On a page this short that flexibility is worth planning around: take a both-ways listing when the forecast refuses to settle, and keep the indoor-only entries for the days when it clearly is not going to improve.