One Last Visit to Trentham Gardens – Shaun the Sheep, Bad Jokes and a Thieving Dog!

It hardly seems possible, but our Trentham Gardens annual passes have come to the end of their year. We'd first bought them in September 2025, and with their final day upon us, it seemed only right to squeeze in one last visit.

Jasper had been to the groomers that morning, so once we'd collected our considerably tidier-looking dog, we headed over to Trentham for a wander. As it was still the final day of our annual passes, we got into the gardens for free.

We've written about Trentham Gardens before, including more of the practical information about visiting, so rather than repeat it all here, you can read our previous Trentham blog from 26 September 2025 here.

This visit was less about covering everything Trentham has to offer and more about enjoying one final wander with our passes.

Although Jasper managed to make it memorable before we'd even reached the gardens.

You bite, you pay

I'd realised I'd used Jasper's last poo bag, so we popped into the dog shop to buy another roll.

That should have been a £1 transaction.

Unfortunately, nobody had explained that to Jasper.

While I was sorting out the poo bags, he helped himself to a pig's ear. There wasn't really any question of putting it back after that, so our freshly groomed dog had effectively gone shopping for himself and left us with the bill.

As John put it:

“You bite, you pay.”

Jasper appeared entirely untroubled by his life of crime.

Shaun the Sheep – and some truly BAAAAD jokes

Once inside the gardens, we started finding Shaun the Sheep sculptures dotted around the route.

As John is totally blind, I describe what we're looking at when we're out and read signs and other information aloud to him. On this occasion, that unfortunately meant I also had to subject him to Shaun the Sheep's Halloween jokes.

“What do you call a sheep skeleton?”

Baaa-r-bones.

It didn't get any better.

Later came the question of a sheep's favourite Halloween dance. John suggested the Skeleton Dance.

No.

It was, of course, the Monster Baa-sh.Then we found another asking for Shaun's favourite spell.

Abra-ca-baaa-ra.

John eventually asked me if I knew what sort of joke that was.

“Terrible?”

Apparently not.

It was a baaaaaad joke.

I walked straight into that one.

My encounter with Roman numerals

We also stopped at the Perseus and Medusa statue. Again, I was reading the inscription aloud for John, which meant encountering Roman numerals.

This started reasonably well.

It did not remain that way.

The first inscription read MDCCCXL. I confidently worked my way through it and arrived at 1811.

It was 1840.

Things improved slightly with MDCCCCLXVI. I did eventually arrive at the correct answer of 1966, although I took a considerably more complicated route to get there than was strictly necessary.

John's contribution was to announce that the only Roman numerals he knows are from WrestleMania.

Useful.

Giant ducks and an autumn wander

There were some rather more conspicuous things that didn't require any mathematical ability to describe: enormous inflatable ducks were one.

It was a lovely autumn day for wandering around the gardens, and although we've visited Trentham a number of times during the year, there's always something different to see as the seasons change.

That's one of the things we've enjoyed about having the annual passes. A visit didn't have to become a whole planned day out. We could simply decide to go for a couple of hours, have a wander and see what had changed since the last time.

However, we won't be renewing the passes.

Although we've enjoyed having them, the reality is that we didn't use them as often as we'd expected when we bought them. When we looked at how much use we'd actually made of them over the year, they simply hadn't been good value for us.

That doesn't mean we won't be coming back to Trentham. We certainly will. It just makes more sense for us to pay for the visits we actually want to make rather than buying another year's passes.

And there are already reasons to come back, because quite a lot is changing in the gardens.

25,000 new plants

We came across areas of the gardens covered in wooden stakes and markings, and I described them to John while we tried to work out what was happening.

John wondered whether it might be something for Halloween.

Then we found the information board.

It wasn't for Halloween.

As part of Trentham's Next Chapter project, more than 25,000 plants were due to start arriving from 14 September, with setting out and planting the whole central section expected to take around five weeks.

“That will be spectacular,” John said.

Further around the gardens, we could actually see some of the plants laid out ready to go into the beds.

It will be interesting to see what the whole area looks like once all that planting is finished and has had time to establish.

Apparently, pillars can be called Jasper

There was still time for one final John moment.

As we were walking along, John suddenly said:

“Sorry, Jasper.”

There was just one small problem.

“That was a pillar, not Jasper. You apologised to a pillar and called it Jasper.”

John wasn't having it.

“Well, it might have been called Jasper at one point.”

No. I think it had always just been a pillar.

Not quite goodbye to Trentham

So that was the end of our year as Trentham Gardens annual pass holders.

We may have decided that the passes weren't good value for the amount we actually used them, but that certainly doesn't mean we're finished with Trentham.

In fact, we already have tickets for the Winter Light Trail, so we'll be back later in the year to see the gardens looking very different.

And just as we were leaving, Jasper very nearly added another item to his criminal record when we passed a box of cuddly toys.

After the pig's ear incident, I think one unauthorised purchase per visit was quite enough.

Watch our final annual-pass visit

You can come along with us for our last visit before the annual passes expired in the full video:

Planning your own day out? See our full UK carer ticket and disabled admission directory — carer policies, disabled parking and access notes for every place we have reviewed.