14 Best Parks and Playgrounds In Hertfordshire

The long valley parks are the ones to check, because a corridor along a river tends to give you a continuous surfaced route rather than a loop that runs out. River Lee Country Park and Lee Valley Regional Park both work that way. Look at recent photographs before you commit, though, since path quality varies stretch by stretch and a towpath that suits a confident eight-year-old can be gravel or mud where a four-year-old needs tarmac.

The rules and the expectations both tighten. College Lake Nature Reserve and Rickmansworth Aquadrome Nature Reserve are managed for wildlife first, so there may be no play equipment at all, dogs and noise may be restricted, and the reward is what you see rather than what you climb. Children who enjoy hunting for things do well; children who need a frame and a swing will ask to leave before you have finished the first path.

Not quite, and it is worth untangling before you set off. The regional park is a long corridor containing a number of separate sites with their own entrances and car parks, while the country park is one part of it. Two records can therefore point to overlapping ground while meaning different gates. Check the exact address on the listing you are using, or you can end up in the right park and the wrong end of it.

Cassiobury Park is the one with enough going on for several children to want different things at once, which is what a mixed group really needs. Somewhere large enough to hold a playground, water and space to walk means the older ones can be given a bit of rope while the youngest stays put. On the smaller sites in this list you tend to end up refereeing rather than sitting down, however pleasant the surroundings are.