Formby Beach & Pinewoods
Huge sand dunes, a proper beach and red squirrels in the pinewoods behind it. The dunes alone will occupy them for an hour. Free entry if you have National Trust membership.
Duke Street Park
Formby, Merseyside
Duke Street Park is the one park in Formby set up for a whole morning instead of twenty minutes. Sefton class it as a district park, meaning it is built to serve the whole town, and the list backs that up: a large play area, six hard tennis courts, bowling greens and football pitches, with the library and the station a short walk away.
The tennis is the quiet bargain. All six courts are booked through the park's LTA ClubSpark page and the booking is free, which is worth knowing before you drive to a pay-per-hour club somewhere else.
The park is midway through a run of improvements funded by Section 106 money from the Pinewood Park housing development, ward budgets and Formby Parish Council. A widened path along Duke Street and a mural on the changing rooms, painted by artist Holly Bushnell with Formby High School students, are already done. The parish council approved just under £32,000 for new play equipment in April 2026 and confirmed the order in June, with a nature trail of bug hotels and wildlife habitats still to follow. Expect the play area to look like a building site at some point this year.
Know before you go
- Book the tennis courts before you go. Six hard courts at no charge, through the park's own LTA ClubSpark page, is not a thing most towns have.
- Formby Parish Council ordered new play equipment in June 2026 and a nature trail with bug hotels is still to come, so part of the play area may be fenced when you arrive. Nothing on Sefton's or the parish council's pages says the park itself is closed.
- Come by train if the weather is good. The station is a few minutes' walk and there is no car park.
Looking for more parks & outdoors near Formby?
Also in Formby
Formby Pool
Formby kept the separate learner pool that most places quietly dropped: 12.5 metres, stepped access, a shallow end of 0.65 metres, which is the depth at which a two year old can stand up.
Freshfield Dune Heath
Eight hectares of lowland dune heath behind Freshfield station, run by the Wildlife Trust. Red squirrels, lizards and dragonflies, grazing livestock, and no car park, no toilets and no cafe of any kind.
Deansgate Lane Fields
Playing fields on the Freshfield side of Formby with a woodland sculpture trail running through the trees along the edge. Free, open, and honestly more pitches than park.