About
Boston Park Farm is a family business run by the David Chappell and his family since 1976 and includes the Farm Park, Maize Maze and horse liveries as well as an 800 acre arable farm. His two daughters Lucy and Ruth and his wife Amanda are now partners in the business and 2026 will be the 50th year the family has farmed at Boston Park Farm and the 26th season for the maize maze, which has grown and developed since it started in 2000.
In 2012 the facilities were expanded at the Maize Maze with a new tearoom with indoor play areas being built to enable the farm to be open all year around. There is an animal trail where you can get up close to all the animals to pet and feed them, outdoor paddocks and nature trail. An indoor soft play area which is aimed at the under 8′s and great for showery days plus lots of outdoor play frames, swings, slides etc.
The Maize Maze is open each year from Mid July until the end of October and is built using forage maize. This remarkable plant is grown all over the world and has many different uses but ours here at Boston Park is used for animal feed. Maize grows very fast – within 3 months of the maize being sown at Boston Park it is taller than an adult.
History
1975
David Chappell took over the tenancy at Boston Park Farm. The farm is owned by E V Waddington’s of Swinton and is rented on a long term basis by the Chappell Family.
1983
Some of the older traditional farm buildings were knocked down and replaced with a large grain store. By now we had a lot less livestock and were growing wheat, barley and sugar beet.
1995
The Chappell family opened a cabin selling Thaymar ice-cream which was open during the summer holidays.
2000 - 2003
Boston Park Maize Maze opened for its first summer and saw around 500 visitors. Then maze was expanded into a larger field and we opened a small petting farm for visitors through the summer
2004-2011
A lot of the remaining buildings were converted into stables for horse livery.
The Maize Maze was just open during the summer and autumn. Shriek Week at Halloween became a very popular event.
2012
The decision was made to convert a barn on the farm into a cafe and adding more animals enabling the park to be open all year around.
2014
Our first toddler group – Little farmers began in May.
2015-2019
Further developments were made over these years, including new animal barn and petting area, indoor soft play, sandpit shed, new play barn for the bouncy castle, cafe expansion and large gift shop.
2020/2021
The farm was closed for the majority of 2020 and a good part of 2021 due to the Covid pandemic. But during this time there were many improvements made. Including a new entrance, pig barn, extension to the existing animal barn and a Snack Baa.
2022
In 2022 Amy and Mary (David’s daughters) joined the farm, they were both teachers previously and took on the roles of education at the farm. Introducing more farmer groups and extending the school visit package.
2023
In February 2023 we had opened our new barn for the Lambing event. This also doubles as a cattle barn for the rest of the year.
2024
We made improvements to the animal handling area, added a new toddler play frame and installed a large permanent marquee for extra social space .
2025
We applied for a Carbon grant in 2025 to be able to install 96 solar panels (42kWp) on our cattle barn, the grant covered 50% of the cost of the panels and should make a big difference to our electricity usage and our carbon footprint.
2026
This year is the 50th year David Chappell and his family have farmed Boston Park Farm. There are lots of new events planned for this year plus we welcomed our first ever Highland cows and Shire horses.
In The Future
We are continuously working to improve the facilities that we provide at the farm and hopefully will be making some more expansions and improvements in 2026!