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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Travel
Milo Boyd

UK's best adventure playgrounds including huge £15m tower and mini railway

The UK has many, many adventure playgrounds that are perfect for wearing out little legs and expanding kids' imaginations.

With the Easter holidays just around the corner, having a few fun and cheap activities to fill the days in the back pocket is a wise idea.

Built into the woodlands, National Trust gardens and parks of the UK are some excellent adventure zones that are designed to keep kids enthralled for hours on end.

In recent years the ante has definitely been upped when it comes to the scale and design of these parks.

A particularly good example of this is Lilidorei in The Alnwick Garden, which was designed by the Duchess of Northumberland at a cost of £15million and will open later this year.

Here are ten of the best adventure playparks in the UK.

1. Animal Wood, Castlewellan, Northern Ireland

Animal Wood lets kids clamber up onto woodland creatures (children playing at Animal Wood, Castlewellan, Northern Ireland)

What's particularly nice about Animal Wood is how the park immerses kids in British wildlife.

Four to 11-year-old can scramble around on wild woodland animals such as a badger and its den, a red squirrel, and a giant spider.

Animal Wood also has a great wooden play structure with a tower that can be reached by a climbing wall, before young ones whizz done via the fireman's pole or down the hollow tree stump slide.

Entry is £5 per car, or free to walkers.

2. WildPlay, Keswick, Cumbria

WildPlay is a huge adventure park that has nine zones for slightly more grown up kids to explore.

You can spend a whole day rushing along the 600m trail which joins them and is lined with sculptures of Shaun the Sheep and the Gruffalo.

Rope bridges, timber climbing frames and log swings are great to tire out energy filled kids all year round, with the infinity pool and water features ideal for the hot summer months.

Up to 20 minutes is free; your first hour is £2 with additional time charged at 45p per 20 mins up to a maximum of £8 for all day.

3. Weston Park, Weston-under-Lizard, Staffordshire

This park is packed full of great facilities including climbing walls, slides, trampolines, log swings and one of the longest double zip-wires in the whole of the UK.

What really stands Weston Park out from others is the miniature railway which does a 12 minute loop past the lakes and through the woods.

It's the perfect way to take in the amazing Staffordshire landscape.

Tickets cost £8 for adults, £4 for children and entry is free for under 4s.

4. Tyntesfield, Wraxall, Somerset

There are 540 acres to explore (Shared Content Unit)

Tyntesfield gothic house has tens of thousands of fascinating objects collected by the home's original owner who made his money selling guano.

Children are more likely to be excited by the 540 acres of grounds that surround the home.

A big tractor sits in the middle of the farm play area that kids are allowed to climb up onto and then whizz down from via the slide.

Entry costs £19 for adults and £9 for children £9.

5. The Land, Wrexham, Wales

The Land is unique in the playpark world (Corbis via Getty Images)

The Land is a playground for the children of distressed décor loving, back-yard themed bar frequenting parents.

It is suitable for children five years and over consists of a fenced off one-acre play-area with a brook running through it.

There are big piles of pallets, a tonne of tyres, upside-down boats, wheelbarrows, ladders and fishing nets.

Entry is free.

6. Lilidorei, The Alnwick Garden, Northumberland

The playground will be record breaking when it opens (Getty Images)

This is a great park for kids who love climbing up big structures and throwing themselves around - at least it will be when it opens later this year.

Lilidorie is the passion project of the Duchess of Northumberland who has helped invest £15million into what will be the world's biggest play structure.

It's due to open at Easter and will have elves, goblins and pixies hided around it inside gingerbread houses and slides as tall as eight-storey buildings.

Entry costs adults £12, over-2s £15, under-2s free.

7. Belvoir Castle, Grantham, Leicestershire

The castle also hosts mini-mudders for kids (Matthew Taylor/REX/Shutterstock)

This playpark is set in the grounds of the stunning 11th century Belvoir Castle, making it the perfect location to excite imagination rich little minds.

Kids can wage pretend battles in the park's huge timber fort and sneak up on one another through tunnels that litter the area.

There is also a secret climbing wall and wooden replica of HMS Resolution with climbing nets and a zip wire which races through the trees.

Entry costs £18 for adults, £9 for children, £50 for a family of four, and under 4s go free.

8. Margam Country Park, Port Talbot

Entry is free to the Margam castle play park (Getty Images)

This playpark has some truly magical features including a mini castle with a watch tower than can be clambered to the top of, and a massive slide.

A fairy-tale village full of miniature houses is perfect for younger children who might find the bigger apparatus a little intimidating.

There is also a steam train and lake to kayak across, as well as large numbers of deer which roam across the park.

Entry is free, but parking charges apply.

9. Tudor Towers, Hever Castle and Gardens, Kent

It is definitely worth taking kids around the castle before letting them loose in the playpark, particularly if they are fans of the gory but fascinating, beheading rich history of what was Anne Boleyn’s childhood home.

With the learning done, beans can be exerted on the turreted wooden castle in the play park which has its own moat, drawbridge and Tudor dining hall.

Acorn Dell, a separate playground, has a giant sandpit and is perfect for younger children.

Entry costs £17 for adults and £11 for children.

10. Heartlands, Redruth, Cornwall

Mini sailors will love scrambling around in a shipwrecked boat in the middle of this tumbling wilderness of a park.

The nautical theme is continued with the beach which is the perfect place for aspiring young builders to take a turn at making their own mini constructions.

The free mining museum and indoor soft play area are good places to shelter from the rain, if it comes.

Entry costs £1 for adults and £5 for children.

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