14 Best Parks and Playgrounds In Northumberland

Northumberland does not really do pocket parks. Of the fourteen listings here, the memorable entries are landscapes: Kielder Water and Forest Park, England's largest forest wrapped around northern Europe's largest man-made lake; Cragside House, Gardens and Estate at Rothbury, rated 4.8, where the world's first hydroelectrically lit house sits in a plantation of towering conifers; Druridge Bay Country Park, seven miles of dune-backed beach with a lake behind it. Even the page's most conventional entry, The Alnwick Garden — adult entry listed at £16.80 — thinks big, with its Grand Cascade, treehouse restaurant and a poison garden that children queue to be warned about. The town parks hold their own in this company: Carlisle Park in Morpeth, rated 4.7, runs riverside paddling and formal beds, and Ridley Park gives Blyth a coastal green with a strong playground. Two listings — Paxton House and Coldstream Museum — sit right on the Scottish border and stretch the county line as far as it will go. Six of the fourteen have indoor space; the other eight assume you have dressed for Northumberland, which is its own kind of honesty.