The Bucks museum is £8 and the Roald Dahl gallery £9.50. Wendover Woods and College Lake are free to enter. Ten places near Aylesbury, prices checked this week.
The vale is unusually well supplied for a district this size: two National Trust properties, a Rothschild country house, a working steam railway, a wildlife hospital and a chalk quarry turned nature reserve, all within about half an hour of Aylesbury town centre.
Every price and opening time below was checked against the venue’s own website in the week of 9 August 2026. Where a place has a seasonal price or a live caveat, it is written down rather than left out.
What each one costs an adult
Waddesdon Manor, Waddesdon
The French chateau the Rothschilds built on a Buckinghamshire hill, and the most ambitious day out in the district. Grounds admission is £14 for adults and £7 for children aged 5 to 17, with under-5s free. House and grounds is £27 and £13.50. National Trust, Art Fund and Historic Houses members go free to both; RHS members get free grounds entry and pay £13 for house and grounds.
It opens Wednesday to Sunday plus bank holiday Mondays. The grounds run 10am to 5pm with last entry at 4pm, and the house opens at noon (11am at weekends) and closes at 4.30pm, last entry 3.30pm.
Two things to know before you book. The estate is currently installing ground source heat pumps into the Manor and conserving the stone façade, and says so at the top of its own website, so expect scaffolding. And residents of Waddesdon, Westcott and Upper Winchendon get in free with photo ID showing a current address, which is the single best local deal on this page.
Chilli Fest is on 5 and 6 September 2026, the one weekend when National Trust membership does not get you in free.
Stowe Gardens, Buckingham
Georgian landscape gardening on a scale that is hard to take in: lakes, temples, monuments and long views, laid out over three centuries. Adult £18.00, child 5 to 17 £9.00, family £45.00 without Gift Aid, and free parking. National Trust and RHS members go free, and under-5s are free.
One live caveat, which the Trust flags itself: the government’s temporary VAT reduction runs from 25 June to 1 September 2026, so the price you actually pay at the till may be lower than the price advertised. Ask when you arrive.
Postcode MK18 5EQ, on the edge of Buckingham.
Claydon, Middle Claydon
Smaller than Stowe and stranger: rococo interiors, a historic costume collection and a Florence Nightingale connection. Adult £12.00, child £6.00, family £30.00 without Gift Aid, free parking, National Trust members free.
This summer it is hosting White Cube at Claydon, a contemporary art exhibition staged in the rococo rooms and the private gardens, run jointly by the gallery and the National Trust. The Trust asks visitors to book an arrival slot under that exhibition to manage parking, and while it is on there are no dogs in the house or garden except assistance dogs. Note also that the garden can only be reached through the house, so a garden-only visit is not possible.
The café, the Phoenix Kitchen, is run by the Claydon Estate and opens 10am to 4pm Thursday to Monday.
Discover Bucks Museum, Aylesbury
The town’s own museum, on Church Street a couple of minutes from Market Square, and the home of the Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery.
Museum only: adult £8, child 3 to 15 £3, family of four £20, family of five £22.50. Under-3s and essential carers are free. Museum plus the Children’s Gallery: adult £9.50, child £5.50, family of four £27, family of five £32.
Do the arithmetic on the annual pass before you buy a day ticket. A year’s museum entry is £15 for an adult, which is less than two visits, and a year of museum and gallery is £19.50. A family of four annual ticket for both is £55, against £27 for a single day.
Summer opening is Monday to Saturday 10am to 5pm and Sunday noon to 4pm. The Children’s Gallery only opens on Saturdays, Sundays and Buckinghamshire school holidays, which is the detail that catches people out on a wet Tuesday in term time. On now: The Great Dragon Adventure, 22 July to 1 September 2026.
Buckinghamshire Railway Centre, Quainton
Twenty-five acres of working steam railway and heritage museum, open every Sunday until the end of October plus some Wednesdays in the school holidays, 10.30am to 5pm with last admission at 3pm.
Museum Day admission is £8.50 for adults, £7.50 for over-65s and £5 for children, with family tickets at £16.50 for one adult and up to four children and £25 for two adults and up to four children. Steaming Days, when a full-size locomotive is running, are the busier option.
The offer worth knowing about right now: children go for £1 on Steaming Days from 29 July to 30 August 2026, excluding the Day Out With Thomas weekend of 15 and 16 August. The miniature ride-on railway, run by the neighbouring VAMES society, is £1.50 a person with under-3s free. Booking online adds a £3 fee, so buy at the gate or in person in advance.
The café and gift shop are open Monday to Friday 9.30am to 2pm all year with no ticket required, though there is limited access to the rest of the site on those days.
Tiggywinkles, Haddenham
The wildlife hospital on Aston Road, HP17 8AF, with a visitor centre housing the animals that cannot be returned to the wild. It is open seven days a week, 10am to 4pm, through the summer, and no booking is needed.
Adult £7.20, children aged 3 to 18 £5.60, family £22.10, on the rate that includes a Gift Aid declaration or a 10% donation; the hospital publishes a slightly different set of prices for visitors who do not add one, so check the board on the day.
From 16 September 2026 to 15 March 2027 it moves to Thursday to Monday, 10am to 4pm, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, at a winter rate of £6.10 adult, £4.40 child and £18 family. It reopens every day during school half-terms.
Wendover Woods, Aston Clinton
Forestry England’s site on the Chiltern escarpment, HP22 5NQ. Entry is free and you pay for the car park, on a tariff that jumps sharply in the middle:
- Up to 1 hour, or an early bird exit before 11am: £3.80
- Up to 2 hours: £4.00
- Up to 3 hours: £7.20
- Up to 4 hours: £7.80
- Up to 5 hours: £13.80
- All day: £15.00
Two hours costs 20p more than one, and three hours costs nearly double two, so it pays to know roughly how long you are staying. Coaches are £40 and minibuses £25. It is card payment only, on a pay-on-foot machine by the Information Point, with ANPR barriers. A Wendover Woods membership is £81 a year and national Forestry England membership is £8 a month, both of which park free.
Open every day except Christmas Day, 8am to 7pm until 25 October 2026 and 8am to 5pm through the winter, with last car entry an hour before closing. There is a café, a play area, easy-access trails, 25 accessible parking spaces and mountain bike trails.
College Lake, near Tring
A worked-out chalk quarry that the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust turned into 67 hectares of nature reserve, on the Upper Icknield Way at Bulbourne, HP23 5QG. Entry is free, donations welcome, and the car park is free.
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm with last entry at 4pm, closed Mondays except bank holidays; the café runs 10am to 4pm. There is a visitor centre, bird hides, toilets, a shop and a picnic area, around 90% surfaced paths, and two mobility Trampers that can be booked on 01442 826774. Assistance dogs only, which is the one thing to check before setting off with the family pet.
Buckingham Old Gaol
A small museum in a building that looks like a toy castle in the middle of Buckingham. Adults £5, children £2.50 with under-5s free, family of two adults and three children £10, last admission 3.15pm.
Currently on: a programme marking the 150th anniversary of Flora Thompson’s birth, with a temporary exhibition alongside the permanent Flora Thompson room. Author talks by Suzy Stathers and John Owen Smith run on the Saturday evenings of 5 and 12 September, £10 a head, tickets from the museum shop. Heritage Open Day on 19 September is free entry. The museum also displays coins from the Lenborough Hoard, valued at £1.35 million and dug up a few miles away.
Aylesbury Waterside Theatre
The town’s main venue, run by ATG, with 123 shows currently listed. Coming up: Our Stage Summer Drama on 24 August, Magic Mike Live from 27 to 29 August and The Choir of Man from 1 to 5 September 2026. The smaller Norman Bragg Studio next door screens National Theatre Live productions, which is the cheapest way to see a West End cast without going to London.
Planning a day out
- If you want a big house: Waddesdon for spectacle, Stowe for landscape, Claydon for the interiors. All three are free to National Trust members, and Waddesdon is also free to Art Fund and Historic Houses members.
- If you want to spend nothing: College Lake and Wendover Woods, though the second one charges to park.
- If you have children: the Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery at weekends and in the school holidays, or the £1 children’s fare on the Quainton steam trains until 30 August.
- If it rains: Discover Bucks Museum, the Old Gaol, or a matinee at the Waterside.
More Aylesbury local information: house prices, trains to London, roadworks and travel and planning news.
Prices and opening times change, particularly at the end of the summer season. Check the venue’s own website before you set out.
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