The best UK attractions with free annual pass upgrades – saving you hundreds

WITH the summer holidays here, tourist hotspots are offering free annual pass upgrades.

These new deals allow you to pay once, then visit as many times as you like for the rest of the year – saving you buckets of cash.

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David Whitley rounds up some of the best on offer.

Leeds Castle, Kent

THIS moat-surrounded castle mixes tales of medieval queens and glamorous 1930s parties.

The appeal for repeat visitors, however, is likely to lie in the 500-acre grounds, which give plenty of room for kids to burn off steam.

They will also spend hours tackling two playgrounds and the obstacle course.

Tickets cost £30 for adults and £22.50 for children. See leeds-castle.com.

Magna, Rotherham

HOUSED inside a gigantic former steelworks, this science museum has four zones – earth, air, fire and water – and is full of hands-on, playful exhibits.

Its Big Melt Show uses light and sound to bring the hulking old machinery to life, while outside is an enormous playground and splash park.

Tickets cost £15.95 for adults and £13.95 for children. See visitmagna.co.uk.

Beamish, County Durham

CALLING itself “the living museum of the North”, Beamish is much more than a preserved village.

Across the huge site, there’s a 1900s pit village and colliery, farm, vintage train station, tramway and 1900s town.

One minute, you’re getting an idea of what school was like more than a century ago, the next you’re taking a guided tour of the mine or fussing over the pigs.

Tickets cost £24.95 for adults and £15.45 for children. See beamish.org.uk.

Black Country Living Museum, Dudley

IN the West Midlands, this attraction puts more of an Industrial Revolution twist on the open-air museum concept.

Staff are in costume, and the 80,000-strong artefact collection includes trolley buses and canal boats.

Tickets cost £22.95 for adults and £11.45 for children. See bclm.com.

Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh

THE King’s official residence in Scotland has exhibitions on Bonnie Prince Charlie and Mary, Queen of Scots.

But most will want to gawp at the lavish decoration in the throne room.

Tickets, £18 adults, and £10 children. Annual passes also available at other properties in the Royal Collection Trust – Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and Clarence House. See rct.uk.

National Space Centre, Leicester

IT’S hard to miss the 42m tall, semi-transparent Rocket Tower as you approach the National Space Centre.

It’s home to the massive Blue Streak and Thor Able rockets, as well as rock brought back from the moon and an Apollo Lunar Lander.

The star attraction, though, is the Sir Patrick Moore Planetarium – the largest in the UK (not included in ticket price).

Tickets cost £18.95 for adults and £16.95 for children. See spacecentre.co.uk.

• Other attractions offering free annual pass upgrades include Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, The Deep aquarium in Hull and The National Museum of Rural Life in East Kilbride.

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