Brockhole on Windermere
The national park's visitor centre with treetop nets, archery, mini golf, boat hire and a big adventure playground running down to the lake shore. Free to wander; the activities are pay-as-you-go.
Parks & outdoors Windermere & Bowness
Parks & outdoors in Windermere & Bowness
Playgrounds, country parks, woodland trails and nature reserves. Most of these cost nothing.
3 in Windermere & Bowness3 free3 suit under-5s
Brockhole is free to walk into and then charges for parking and for each activity, the treetop nets and archery and boat hire alike.
Orrest Head costs nothing beyond the village car park. A short climb gets you a summit with the whole lake and the high fells laid out below, a surfaced accessible path now runs the entire way up, and Holehird sets no fixed price at all, ten acres of fellside garden above the Patterdale Road with a suggested £6 an adult and children free.
Parks & outdoors in Windermere & Bowness
Holehird Gardens
Ten acres of fellside garden looking down over Windermere, run by the Lakeland Horticultural Society: terraces, a walled garden, glasshouses and children's trails. No fixed entry price and children go free.
Orrest Head
The classic first family fell: a short climb from Windermere village to a proper summit with the whole lake and the high fells laid out below. A surfaced accessible path now runs all the way up, though it is still a real 120-metre climb, not a stroll.
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.