This magical Midlothian venue with a potions room and fairy land is my new favourite place to take my daughter
Miserable weather at the weekend left my wife and I scratching our heads, thinking where we could go with our four-year-old that we haven’t been to 1,000 times already.
Like many parents with children of a certain age, we have exhausted all soft plays within a 15-mile radius, visited almost every park, and we know the museums like the back of our hand.
And after looking online for something new, we learned about Bubbling Toad in Midlothian, a new magical venue located within Vogrie Country Park - and discovering this truly unique place was the silver lining to Saturday’s dark clouds.
The team behind Bubbling Toad have transformed Vogrie House – a Victorian building from 1876 in the centre of the park – into an immersive experience where children can explore, play, imagine and wonder.
Centred around bringing families together, it is an environment for creative play and calm adventure, offering a range of unique experiences across its three spaces: the beautiful Fairy Hollow, the mystical Potion Room and the tranquil Lunar Library. An escape room is set to open next month, with ongoing plans to introduce fairy trails around the country park.
We tried the ‘Time in the Hollow’ experience, a 60-minute session of dressing up, searching for fairies, dragons and everything in-between and craft making (we made a Mascarade mask complete with jewels and feathers). There is plenty to explore in the The Fairy Hollow room which is quite literally a work of art, and like the rest of the venue, the attention to detail is staggering.
Branches that fell during Storm Éowyn decorate the walls, with lights, colours and textures fusing together to make a sensory masterpiece. A highlight of the room is the fairy garden, a space so rich in detail families can spend quality time uncovering the hidden treasures. My daughter (dressed as a fairy at the time) was utterly captivated, and begging us not to leave at closing time.
But unbeknownst to her we had already booked a session in the Potion Room for the following day.
Bubbling Toad is about a 40-minute drive from Edinburgh and well worth the trip. Just like the Fairy Hollow, the Potion Room is an atmospheric delight where groups can make their own personal potion and even gain a qualification, all within an hour.
Children are given Harry Potter-like gowns before entering the well-stocked potion room that has everything from powdered dragon scales to crushed moonflowers. The group first turns on the lights with their magic wands before learning potion tips and secrets from the Potion Master.
Interspersed with tales of dragons, unicorns and Vogrie Country Park itself, the potion class is a mesmerising session that captured my daughter’s imagination as she made her sparkly, scented concoction.
“Magic of making memories”
I spoke with Gayanne Potter who founded the business earlier in the year. The first seeds of the business were sown during Covid, when the Gorebridge local made an impromptu artwork made from a tree branch and fairy lights in her front garden for passers-by to enjoy on their daily walk.
But this fairy tree quickly proved popular with the local community and the creative installation ‘grew arms and legs’. Gayanne said: “I just started to get all these ideas, initially providing crafts and little activities for children to enjoy, to then making a witch's cottage during Halloween – it later became a Santa's grotto. People kept saying to me ‘you should do this for a job’ and that's where the idea sparked from.
“During Covid we were all back to basics, families were rekindling and reconnecting, they were learning how to play as a family again because that's what we did to survive it.
“And I saw the joy that it was bringing, not just to kids, but for adults also who now had the time and the space to spend with their children rather than running at a million miles an hour.
“I thought, I wonder if I could create something that gave families that space, where they’re not in front of screens, they’re using their imagination and they can be together, enjoy simple pleasures, and enjoy the magic of making memories.”
At less than two months old, Bubbling Toad remains a hidden gem for parents and children to explore, but I expect this enchanted place will soon become a regular haunt for many.
For more information and to book a visit you can visit the Bubbling Toad website.