Chester Zoo
Excellent, but it is a lot of walking. Reviews rate 5 to 10 as the ideal age and still recommend a pushchair at four. Climbing frames, water play and sand pits break up the distance.
Countess of Chester Country Park
- Cost
- Free, parking £1 for two hours on weekdays
- Ages
- 2 to 11
- Where
- Chester, Cheshire
- Weather
- Mostly outdoors
- Booking
- Just turn up
Twenty nine hectares, nineteen of them owned by the Land Trust, opened in 2014 and now carrying five waymarked routes through grassland, scrub and woodland on the north side of Chester. It is free, it is open access, and it is flat. That flatness is the selling point. The paths and the kissing gates were laid out for people using wheelchairs and walking aids, which means a double buggy goes round without anyone swearing. Volunteers from the Friends group keep it in decent order and there are enough loops to vary a regular walk instead of tramping the same line every week.
Know what is missing. No toilets, no playground, no cafe, and a car park small enough to fill on a bright Sunday. The Little Owl is about five minutes away if you need a table and a loo. Parking is £1 for two hours on weekdays and free at weekends and in the evenings, so a Saturday morning here costs literally nothing. An hour of proper air on the way to something else is what this place is for. Build a whole day round it and you will be back in the car by half eleven.
What it costs: Entry is free with open access. The small pay and display car park is £1 for two hours Monday to Friday, free at weekends and evenings, and free for blue badge holders. There are two accessible bays.
Know before you go
- No toilets. None. The nearest reliable ones are in the Little Owl pub about five minutes away, and that assumes you are buying something, so plan the visit around it. There is no play equipment either, so pick one of the five self guided routes and give the children the job of following the markers, and the walk becomes the thing.
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What visitors say
★★★★★ 4.5 across 682 Google reviews.
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