My dad recently told us about The House of Marbles as he had been to see it with relatives; he loved it so much he wanted to take us to see it so at the weekend we went with him to take a look around.
The House of Marbles is very easy to find its in Devon between Plymouth and Exeter on the A38, just off the Drumbridges roundabout (Trago Mills roundabout) towards Bovey Tracey, it has the usual brown tourist attraction signs to follow so you cant miss it.
The House of Marbles was not at all what I was expecting; I kind of had it in my head that if my dad enjoyed it then it would be boring for younger people and I'm pleased to say that I was wrong and I'm very glad he took us there.
So what is The House of Marble, well it's a working glass and games factory which is based in an old pottery.
Firstly you have the glass blowing part where you can watch glass blowers make various pieces which later get
sold in the shop. When we where there they where making glass muffins and it was amazing to watch. You can also have glass moulds made here which is the other reason we visited, my dad wanted us to have a glass mould done of our little girls hands, basically you press their hands into wet sand to get an imprint, they then pour glass into it, once its set you can take it home and you have a really unusual keepsake for your child. My little girl didn't play ball and kept grabbing the sand so we ended up doing her feet, it came out really nice and at £30 I thought this was a really nice gift.
Alongside the glass blowing you also have the glass museum which tells you all about the history of glass, how various things are made, this then leads you into the marble museum which again tells you how they are made etc, they even have a machine from the 1980's which had made over 15 million marbles, it's a very interesting piece of machinery to look around.
As I said earlier this attraction is also a games factory so you also have rooms of very old board games & marble games it was amazing to see how a few bits of wood and a couple of marbles could keep children entertained years ago, I don't think these would keep children entertained for very long these days.
The House of Marbles also have various marble runs, all created by a swiss inventor over 10 years ago, these are fascinating to watch, they have a few small ones in glass cabinets which I could have spent hours watching, each time a marble went down the track it would flick a switch so the next marble took a completely different route and so on. These are precision made marble runs where the timing is spot on, I would image these took years to design and build.
Once you have finished looking at he small marble runs then you move on to the large one which probably takes up the side of a two storey house (its the largets one in England), this again is fascinating to watch and is a precise as the small ones.
There is also a restaurant here where you can sit either inside or out and there is a games garden so whist you are having a coffee your children can play large chess, skittles, Jenga etc. It is a little expensive but then most attractions have expensive restaurants.
Finally you have the shop, you will spend quite a long time in here as there is so much to look at, firstly you have all the glass products which are made on site, these range from jewelry to vases and bowls etc. You also have loads of great gift ideas, (I'm thinking of getting my nieces Christmas presents here as the toys are ones that you would never find in a typical toy shop), they have a massive selection of marbles, you can pick your own (a bag of 25 cost around £1), there are books, puzzles, kites the list goes on.
I have to say this attraction wont keep you occupied for a whole day (we spent about four hours here) but if you are taking a trip to Dartmoor or Trego its well worth popping into on your way home.
This attraction is totally free to visit; it has a large car park outside so you shouldn't have any trouble parking. Its open Monday to Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 10.00am to 5.00pm.
A great free attraction which will keep you occupied for a few hours
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