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13 Best Parks and Playgrounds In Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire's thirteen park listings lean heavily towards gardens and tree collections, and that is worth knowing before one of them becomes your whole Saturday. Westonbirt The National Arboretum, Batsford Arboretum and Painswick Rococo Garden are magnificent and they are also, to a five-year-old, a very long walk past plants. What rescues that combination is a play trail, a maze or a den-building area, which several of these sites have added precisely because they know the problem. The plain town park in this group is Pittville Park.
Top parks and playgrounds in Gloucestershire
Showing 1–12 of 13
Parks and PlaygroundsPittville Park
Parks and PlaygroundsWestonbirt The National Arboretum
Children's FarmsCattle Country Adventure Farm Park Berkeley
Parks and PlaygroundsBatsford Arboretum
Children's FarmsCotswold Farm Park
SightseeingPerrygrove Railway and Treetop Adventure
Zoos and Wildlife ParksBirdland Park and Gardens
Parks and PlaygroundsPainswick Rococo Garden
Parks and PlaygroundsForest of Dean Sculpture Trail
Activity CentresTaurus Crafts
Parks and PlaygroundsBeechenhurst
Parks and PlaygroundsThe Gruffalo Trail
The question to ask about any garden on this list is what it has put in for children, because the plants alone will not carry the afternoon below about age eight. Where the answer is a trail, a sculpture route or somewhere to climb, these become excellent days out. Where it is not, keep the visit short.
Parks and Playgrounds in Gloucestershire: FAQs
Will an arboretum really keep children happy?
It depends almost entirely on whether there is a marked trail for them. Given a route to follow, a clipboard or a play area partway round, a six-year-old will cover ground happily and never notice they are walking. Given only trees and a map, most children under eight lose interest quickly. Read the family pages on their own website first, then build the visit round whatever has been laid on.
Which entries here are built for children first?
Three names here are children's attractions in their own right that happen to sit in this category: Cotswold Farm Park, Cattle Country Adventure Farm Park Berkeley and Perrygrove Railway and Treetop Adventure, each marked with space under cover as well as out. Birdland Park and Gardens is another where the animals do the work. If the day has to succeed with a four-year-old, start with these rather than the gardens.
Is there anything in this list a teenager will not roll their eyes at?
Honestly, the gardens will struggle. The best chance is a site with a route long enough to feel like a proper walk, or one with an activity bolted on such as a treetop course or a railway. Beyond that, Gloucestershire's adventure and activity categories will serve that age far better than its parks do, and a page like this one gains nothing by pretending.
Five of the thirteen have indoor space. How does that shape a wet day?
It narrows things sharply, and the five are mostly the farm and attraction entries rather than the gardens. That is convenient, because those are also the sites that work best with young children. A drizzle-proof plan in this county tends to mean an animal attraction with barns rather than a garden with a tea room, and the difference is roughly two hours of usable time.