Farington Park
Four and a half hectares in Farington with a modern play area, outdoor gym kit, an old mill pond and a patch of woodland. First Green Flag in 2025, and a small free car park at Bashall Grove.
Parks & outdoors Leyland
Parks & outdoors in Leyland
Playgrounds, country parks, woodland trails and nature reserves. Most of these cost nothing.
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Worden Park has a proper hedge maze, an arboretum, play areas and a miniature railway that runs on summer Sundays, and none of it costs anything. The maze alone justifies the drive.
Farington Park is four and a half hectares with a modern play area, outdoor gym kit, an old mill pond and a small free car park at Bashall Grove, and it took its first Green Flag in 2025. Paradise Park on the Moss Side edge of Leyland is twenty acres of woodland and pond with a dipping platform on the water, and the paths were resurfaced in June 2026, so wellies are no longer compulsory.
Parks & outdoors in Leyland
Paradise Park, Leyland
Twenty acres of woodland, glades and pond on the Moss Side edge of Leyland, with a dipping platform on the water. The paths were resurfaced in June 2026, so it is no longer a wellies-only proposition.
Worden Park
Leyland's big free park with a proper hedge maze, arboretum, play areas and a miniature railway running summer Sundays. The maze alone is worth the detour.
Parks & outdoors elsewhere in the North West
Walton Hall & Gardens
The reliable default: gardens, a children's zoo, a big playground and plenty of room to run. Pay for parking, nothing else.
Risley Moss
A peat bog nature reserve with woodland trails, a visitor centre and an observation tower the kids can climb. Free, close and short enough for little legs.
Sherdley Park
St Helens' biggest park. Play areas, open space and a walled garden, and it costs nothing.
Dream, Sutton Manor
A 20-metre white head rising out of a reclaimed colliery, with woodland trails around it. Genuinely strange and memorable for kids, and a short walk rather than a hike.
Sankey Valley Park
A green corridor of canal towpath and parkland running from St Helens down towards Warrington. Flat, traffic-free and ideal if the bikes or scooters are coming.
Speke Hall
A Tudor hall with woodland walks, a maze and a natural play area in the grounds. Free if you have National Trust membership, and the indoor house is a good rain fallback.
What’s on near you, every Friday
One email a week: what is on this weekend within a sensible drive, and the places worth booking before they go.