Marwell Zoo Brickosaurs – family day out in Hampshire

How do you make a day out at the zoo even better? Add Lego dinosaurs. So we headed to visit the Marwell Zoo Brickosaurs near Winchester for a very fun Hampshire day out with kids.

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The 140 acre zoo itself is home to 1,200 animals but from April 5 until September 1, there’s a display of 50 Brickosaurs at Marwell Zoo, created using more than two million bricks.

And it took the team from Bright Bricks, who created the Brickosaurs models, 10,000 days to make them all – including an 8m T-Rex. 38 are already on show with 12 more due to arrive in July.

For more animal attractions in Hampshire and other days out in Hampshire with kids, check out my top things to do

Marwell Zoo is somewhere which has been on my list for a day out with kids in Hampshire for a while but although we’ve made it to nearby Winchester (or headed on to the Isle of Wight or New Forest), we haven’t had chance to visit the animals before. So Lego dinosaurs seemed the perfect excuse.

Even without them it’s a lovely zoo – lots of little animal themed details, cleverly designed enclosures to give the inhabitants the space and surroundings they need but also allowing visitors some fantastic encounters: a red panda curled up comfortably in its tree, waking to yawn extravagantly, lick its nose a few times  then snuggle back down, a sloth deciding to belie its name by swinging faster than you might expect from its hanging snooze up a tree to grab some leaves. And that was just a couple.

But before you reach even the first creatures which live here – penguins, all lined up in a rather orderly queue – you meet the first of the Brickosaurs. In fact, first you hear it. Stepping through the gates, a low rumbling growl sounds and a note (in a Lego frame) warns of loud noises ahead.

From a packing crate, a Lego claw appears and a Lego eye glares balefully through a knot in the box. Carol the compognathus sits nearby, sister to Colin who lurks in the window of the info hut where you can pick up Brickosaur spotting guides plus the regular Wild Explorer animal stamp booklets.

You can also check off the main Brickosaur statues on the zoo’s app – and there’s no cheating, it knows whether you’re standing close enough before it’ll let you tick the box.

Watching the distances count down as we walked was added fun – as well as helping make sure we were going in the right direction. And we only had to run back once to tick one we’d forgotten to do.

The app itself is full of useful information – facts about the animals, which entertained us on the drive down from London, challenges you can do in the zoo, details of upcoming talks and events, an audio guide, a map, even a safari option so it’ll find the section for the animals you’re nearest. There’s even free WiFi so you don’t blow your data allowance using it.

The only downside is that it regularly crashes so it’s best to open it, tick off one Brickosaur (or check whatever you’re looking for) then close it rather than leave it running all day.

Between the Brickosaurs and the stamp trail (with a bonus section identifying poo), we didn’t have time to even consider the talks. We didn’t even finish the stamps, with the dinosaurs as our main goal. If we lived just a bit closer, I’d be very tempted by the annual pass.

It didn’t take long to find our first true Brickosaur – a multicoloured Triceratops. I can’t even begin to imagine how you would go about building one of these from a pile of bricks so the little signs by each creation were a rather fun insight.

As well as explaining how long it took, how many people and how many bricks, not to mention how much it weighs, there are also facts about the way they’re designed. The Triceratops has a 2×2 brick grid rather than 1×1 apparently to make it sturdier, and later we discovered another dinosaur had roof bricks to create its beak.

Other boards talk about the inspirations behind them: a snow leopard’s spotted coat was the starting point for a velociraptor’s colourings. Another decided to experiment with using the bricks upside down… until it rained and the designers realised they filled with water.

It’s fun to see how the colours and shapes of the Lego dinosaurs mimic the animals here sometimes – vibrant brights like the birds and butterflies inside the tropical house, an armoured back and leg raised to charge off like the smaller scuttling reptile cousins in their tanks.

Or a huge rhino statue dwarfing a family of compsognathus was a reminder not all these prehistoric terrors were as frightening as T-Rex – the largest touring Lego brick dinosaur model ever made.

I wonder what Henry VIII and Jane Seymour would have thought? Behind T-Rex stands Marwell Hall, once owned by Jane’s brother, and which the royal pair used to visit.

And there are often little details alongside the Brickosaurs themselves – eggs, bits of Lego bone, even archaeologist’s tools in one spot.

If looking at Lego isn’t enough, there’s also a huge pit of it at Base Camp (along with Duplo for littler ones) and a rather fun photo op with a Megalosaur head.

It’s all well laid out so you never seem too far away from the next dino – occasionally several come at once, and there’s no escaping the gift shop if you want to see the final one – but so it’s also easy to wander around the usual animal attractions at Marwell Zoo.

We spied cheetahs in the long grass, idly watching zebra through the fence between enclosures, measured ourselves against a giraffe before watching half a dozen of them dither in the doorway of their home, undecided about whether to venture out into a chilly early April morning.

Lemurs frolicked, as Minnie dashed through a set of four activities and puzzles themed around them, and a leopard efficiently stripped meat from a bone in its leafy platform hideaway.

There always seems to be plenty that’s interactive: my six-year-old loved lifting the flaps on one African-themed display although the mood-lit savannah building was a rare part which seemed a bit less enticing from an adult point of view.

That’s definitely not true of the Marwell Zoo Tropical House which opened last year: a two-level rainforest cleverly hidden inside a purpose built structure, it’s deliciously warm inside.

As well as spotting the two-toed sloth on the move, brightly coloured birds and butterflies flit around, tiny pygmy marmosts peeked out from the undergrowth to stare down at us, and a crocodile monitor lizard plodded along in its own area with a slightly menacing swagger.

Then a whole array of furry creatures: that unfeasibly cute red panda, white faced sakis and silvery marmosets, tamarins, more lemurs (although mostly inside rather than in their walkthrough area) and snow leopards.

It’s not surprising that six hours flew by – and without a single complaint of tired legs from my six-year-old.

Marwell Zoo Brickosaurs: Need to know

Entry to see the Brickosaurs at Marwell Zoo is included in the usual ticket price – click here to buy in advance and skip any queues. The zoo is around 20 minutes from Winchester and has free parking on site, although it does fill up quickly on busy days (school holidays and bank holidays in particular).

There’s also a bus from Eastleigh train station to Marwell Zoo from April 6 to September 1, on weekends, bank holidays and school holidays. If you travel by bus, you get tickets for £11.

Tickets cost from £17.09 for adults (off-peak, excluding optional donation) and £13.94 for children aged three to 16. In the summer months, there are also family tickets from £76.44.

The zoo is designed to explore on foot, but there is a small road train which runs around the front loop of the park. From Spring until October, you can also hop on the little train which runs at weekends and school holidays, and which makes a 15-minute trip around a different section of the zoo. If you’ve got a buggy, you do have to leave that on the platform (uncovered) for either.

Marwell Zoo opening hours are from 10am, closing between 4pm and 6pm at different points during the year. Last entry is 90 minutes before closing, and you’re advised to allow at least four hours for a visit.

It’s worth downloading the free app before you visit too, and check out the zoo’s own top tips for busy days and for getting the most from your day with information on everything from playgrounds to cafes – there are ice cream and snack kiosks at various points around the park and picnic areas, as well as hot food at Cafe Graze (unsurprisingly this gets busy at lunchtime, so get there early or late).

For another great family day out in Winchester, check out my review of the Winchester Science Centre with kids

PIN FOR LATER: BRICKOSAURS AT MARWELL ZOO

Disclosure: My entry to see the Brickosaurs at Marwell Zoo was courtesy of the zoo. All opinions and decision that nothing is cuter than a red panda are my own.

Images and video copyright MummyTravels

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