Zip World Manchester
The cheapest real activity anyone is recommending this summer, and it's indoors. An hour of play for a fiver a head, with picnic benches for when you need to sit down.
Longford Park
Trafford, Greater Manchester
The two playgrounds are the reason this works with a five year old and an eleven year old on the same morning. The younger one, aimed at up to eight, sits opposite the Longford Cafe with slides, swings, a climbing frame, spring riders and roundabouts. The older one, roughly eight to fourteen, is further north past the Scout Ranche and runs to advanced climbing nets, a disc roundabout and zip lines. Nobody has to share.
The rest of the list is unusually long for a free park. Trafford Council counts tennis and basketball courts, a bowling green, an athletics stadium, a climbing boulder, disc golf, Pets Corner, a cafe, toilets and a car park. The park borders Chorlton on the eastern side, which is why half of Manchester thinks it is theirs.
Pets Corner is volunteer run and holds chickens, goats and ducks, on a look but do not touch basis to keep the animals calm. Expect one round of negotiation about this.
The cafe occupies the John Rylands cottage in the middle of the park and houses the public toilets plus a specialist accessible changing facility for children and adults with disabilities. From 2025 the park has been benefiting from more than £3m of National Lottery Heritage Fund investment, so some corner of it is a building site on any given visit.
Know before you go
- Pets Corner is a sanctuary, so the animals are there to be looked at and not handled. Say so in the car, before a three year old works it out at the fence.
- Park at the athletics stadium on Ryebank Road. A smaller second car park by the disc golf course is kept for people with mobility issues.
- The toilets and the accessible changing facility are inside the cafe building, so they follow cafe hours. Trafford has over £3m of National Lottery Heritage Fund money going into the park from 2025, so expect a fenced-off corner or two.
Looking for more parks & outdoors near Trafford?
Also in Trafford
Legoland Discovery Centre
Two rides, a 4D cinema, build zones and Manchester's skyline done in miniature bricks. Squarely aimed at 3 to 10, and it knows it: adults can only visit with a child.
Sea Life Manchester
Ocean tunnel, rays, seahorses and rockpool touch sessions, sized for smaller legs - you can do the whole thing in a morning and pair it with Legoland next door.
The Snow Centre Manchester
Real snow all year round at the venue Manchester still calls Chill Factore. Little ones get the Snow Park with sledging and slides; older kids can learn to ski or board on the UK's longest indoor slope.
Play Factore
One of the biggest soft play arenas in Europe: a vast frame, go-karts, laser tag and a zip wire that crosses the entire building. Older primary kids do not age out of this one.
Dunham Massey
A Georgian house in a deer park where the fallow deer wander right past you. This summer's Play Hub adds giant games and den building in the North Park, and the winter garden is the area's best cold-day walk.