Worthington Park
Sale's Green Flag town park, a five minute walk from the Metrolink. Two age-split playgrounds, a skate park and an outdoor gym. No cafe and no car park, so it is a walk-in park.
Walton Park
- Cost
- Free, 30p a ride on the trains
- Ages
- 1 to 11
- Where
- Sale, Greater Manchester
- Weather
- Mostly outdoors
- Booking
- Just turn up
Walton Park is a Green Flag park off Walton Road in Sale with the usual Trafford kit: an under 5s play area, an under 14s play area, tennis courts, a bowling green and a full-size football pitch. On six days of the week that is a perfectly good local park and about an hour of your life.
On Sunday it becomes something else. The Sale Area Model Engineering Society run a ground-level miniature railway of about a quarter of a mile, mostly live steam, and they give passenger rides to children and adults every Sunday of the year from around eleven until four. The only exception they publish is when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday. It costs 30p a ride.
The other reason to come is moored at the gate. Walton Perk is a sixty-foot narrowboat cafe on the Bridgewater Canal doing hot drinks, homemade cakes, ice cream and the occasional bacon butty, open most days and traditionally closed on Mondays. Playground, steam train, cake on a boat, and the only money you spend is loose change.
What it costs: The park is free. The miniature railway is run by Sale Area Model Engineering Society and costs 30p a ride, cash, every Sunday of the year from about 11am to 4pm, weather and locomotives permitting. The Walton Perk narrowboat cafe moors at the park entrance on the Bridgewater Canal and is usually closed Mondays.
Know before you go
- Sundays only for the trains, roughly 11am to 4pm, and take coins. Thirty pence a ride is not a typo, and the club are open about having pushed it up from tuppence because of insurance.
- Walton Perk is a sixty-foot narrowboat moored at the entrance on the Bridgewater Canal. Hot drinks, homemade cake, ice cream, sometimes bacon butties. Traditionally shut on Mondays.
- Mostly live steam engines, so there is real fire and real whistles. Small children who love trains will not want to leave after one lap. Budget for four.
- Two playgrounds split under 5s and under 14s, so this holds a wide age spread better than most parks in Sale.
Seasonal: Miniature railway runs every Sunday. Check before travelling.
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