Wirral Santa's Grotto: Church Farm Gone, Floral £22

If you are searching for Santa in Wirral out of habit, start with the bad news, because the place most families booked has stopped.

The Church Farm Santa Experience at Thurstaston will not run again. Not this year, not any year. The farm’s own page says so plainly: “we can confirm that the Santa Experience will not be running again”, after twenty years of it. The rest of this page is what is left, with dates, times and prices verified against each venue’s own booking system on 6 September.

What happened at Church Farm

Two separate decisions, four months apart.

Church Farm Park closed on 4 June 2025, after more than twenty years. That ended the tractor rides, farm parties, school visits, pumpkin picking, the Easter egg hunt and the Family Fright Festival. Most of the animals were rehomed. At the time the farm said the Santa Experience and the Christmas tree sales would carry on.

Then the Santa Experience went too. On 15 June 2025 the booking page still read “FULLY-BOOKED for 2024” and promised “Tickets for 2025 should go on sale on Friday 29 August 2025”. By 13 September 2025 that text had been replaced with the closure notice that is still there today. The reason given is the burial ground on the same site:

As our award-winning burial ground Forget Me Not Fields has become busier we don’t have the time to make The Santa Experience as magical as usual. It wouldn’t be fair to sell tickets to an event which we aren’t able to devote enough time and resources to.

So the last Church Farm Santa Experience was in 2024. The archived page shows that season opening on Saturday 30 November and Sunday 1 December at £16 a child, for a sixty-minute walk round the farm with elves, real reindeer and a personalised visit.

One thing does continue. Christmas tree sales are still on at Church Farm, with over 13,000 growing trees and no booking needed. Check the dates before you drive over: the tree page still carries last season’s headline, “Christmas tree sales are OPEN FOR 2025”, with a Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm pattern running Sat 22 Nov to Sat 13 Dec. That is the 2025 window, not a 2026 promise.

The Floral Pavilion, New Brighton

The main grotto-style event left inside the borough, and the only Wirral one with 2026 dates already on sale.

Storytime with Santa runs Friday 11 December to Thursday 24 December 2026, every single day, in the Blue Lounge at the Floral Pavilion on Marine Promenade.

The £22 is a child ticket that carries the adults with it, so a parent and grandparent come free. The theatre’s box office record adds a line the website does not print: “No further adults permitted.” A third adult cannot be added, and there is no members or group discount on this show.

Every child talks to Santa, gives him their Christmas wishes and receives a festive gift, and the theatre says there are “plenty of photo opportunities”. It is billed as the fifteenth year of the show.

When we read the venue’s live ticketing data on 6 September, all 70 sittings were still listed as on sale and none was cancelled. Note that the public event page was showing a “coming soon” style status against the individual times even though general sale opened back in May, so if the buttons look inactive, ring the box office rather than assuming it has sold out.

Ness Botanic Gardens, just over the boundary

Cheaper, smaller, and the closest thing to a traditional grotto with confirmed 2026 dates. Storytime with Father Christmas at Ness runs on Sunday 6 and Sunday 13 December 2026, with three 45-minute sessions each day at 10.00, 12.00 and 14.00.

Places are capped at 20 children per session, and the price is £9.50 per child, which includes a gift to take home and that child’s admission to the gardens for the day. Each child gets a chat and a photo, and the gardens invite children to bring a letter or a list on the day.

Ness is at Neston, postcode CH64, which puts it just outside Wirral borough in Cheshire West and Chester. For most of the south of the peninsula it is closer than New Brighton.

Gordale, Burton

Gordale Garden & Home Centre on Chester High Road at Burton runs a Charity Santa’s Grotto for the Hospice of the Good Shepherd in Chester, which it says raised £38,897.86 in its last season. There is also a model Christmas village and weekday shopping until 9pm through December.

It is not open for 2026 bookings yet. Gordale’s Christmas page is still showing last season’s notice, “Charity Santa’s Grotto is now SOLD OUT”, so ignore the sold-out line and watch the page rather than giving up on it. Advance booking has been essential in past years. Gordale is CH64, also just outside the borough.

The free option

Birkenhead Market put a free Santa’s grotto with a free gift, 1pm to 3pm, inside its Christmas craft market last year, alongside free face painting and a free craft station. Entry to the market was free too.

The 2026 craft market dates have not been published. We are tracking them, along with Port Sunlight’s and the dockside market’s, on our Wirral Christmas markets page.

What to book first

If you want a fixed date with a fixed price, the Floral Pavilion is the only one in the borough currently selling, and 14 consecutive days means the pressure sits on the weekend sittings rather than the whole run. Ness has 120 places in total across its two Sundays, which is the smallest capacity here and the one most likely to go early.

Parking for New Brighton is on our parking in Wirral page, and anything shutting a road in the run-up is on Wirral roadworks and travel. If you are booking the pantomime in the same trip, the Floral Pavilion’s dates are on our New Brighton pantomime page.

Sources checked on 6 September 2026: thechurchfarmestate.co.uk and its archived Santa Experience page from June and September 2025, wirraltoday.co.uk of 4 June 2025, the Floral Pavilion event page and its live box office data, the University of Liverpool’s Ness Botanic Gardens Christmas pages, gordale.co.uk and the archived Birkenhead Market craft market listing.