Hollingworth Lake
A flat, buggy-friendly lap of a reservoir with a good playground, pedalos and mini electric boats from the activity centre, and ice cream at both ends. Simple, cheap and reliably works.
Queen's Park, Heywood
- Cost
- Free
- Ages
- 1 to 11
- Where
- Rochdale, Greater Manchester
- Weather
- Mostly outdoors
- Booking
- Just turn up
Rochdale Council lists two playgrounds here, one of them a dedicated toddlers' area, alongside a lake, a bandstand, tennis, crown green bowling, outdoor gym equipment and an activity centre with a BMX track attached. Most of the play equipment is wheelchair accessible and the main paths are flat tarmac, which matters more than it sounds when you are pushing a buggy up a Pennine-edge park.
The cafe is community run and does homemade snacks. It is also where the accessible toilet lives, reachable from inside or from the rear of the building, with a second accessible toilet beside the Lodge House at the main entry gate. Free toilets in a park in 2026. Worth saying out loud.
Grassland, wetland and wildlife areas fill the edges, and there are site-based maintenance staff, which is why the place holds a Green Flag instead of merely applying for one. Combine it with Hollingworth Lake ten minutes up the road if you want a full day, or leave it as the two hour version it is designed to be.
What it costs: Free. Rochdale Council lists free onsite parking and free toilets, and no admission charge.
Know before you go
- The car park opposite on Queen's Park Road is the big one and has six accessible bays. It fills on the first warm Saturday of the year and not much else.
- The accessible toilet is inside the cafe or round the back of it, so if the cafe is shut you are relying on the one by the Lodge House at the main gate.
- Bowling greens shut from 30 September to 1 April every year for maintenance. Nothing else in the park closes for winter.
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