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
Sale, Greater Manchester
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.
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.
Looking for more parks & outdoors near Sale?
Also in Sale
Woodheys Park
An 18-hole pitch and putt open seven days a week, clubs hired on the spot, no booking. That is the reason to come. The playground here is under 7s only, so the golf is what occupies the older ones.