A Family Day Out At Stockeld Park

Wanting to visit a beautiful park with fun activities for the kids? Our fabulous blogger, Vikki took a trip down to Stockeld Park and enjoyed the activities with her kids. Vikki has written a detailed blog showing how amazing this attraction is for both children and adults to enjoy!

Stockeld Park is a gem of a destination, found in the beautiful area of Wetherby in Yorkshire. Based on the grounds of a stately home, it was previously home to a riding school and cricket ground, among other things. It’s now an adventure playground, packed with amazing things to do with the family. 

A recent addition to Stockeld is The Playhive, a huge indoor play area which is over 20,000 square feet of fun. 

Depending on which time of year you visit, there are different attractions to visit, such as Halloween and Christmas.

The booking confirmation email is packed with practical advice on finding and visiting Stockeld Park. We also received a reminder email a few days before encouraging us to plan our trip and use the online map. 

When we arrived (on a Friday in August), the car park was busy, but we still managed to find a spot. There’s an overflow car park too, so plenty of room. 

Our booking slot was 10.20 am, and there was quite a queue. We thought that we’d be there for a long time but the team at the ticket office were super quick and we were into the park in a few minutes with our wristbands and map. Our tickets allowed us unlimited access to the Playhive. If you’ve booked a particular slot, the details will be on your wristbands. 

There’s an open area where you first walk in that has the gift shop, cafe, theatre and pathways to the attractions. We had decided in advance to head through the woodland trail first. Once the kids spotted the Playhive, they wouldn’t want to go anywhere else, and we wanted to explore. 

There’s a superhero theme on many of the attractions at Stockeld, so we took some photos with Batman and Iron Man, then headed off on the Woodland Trail.

The beautiful woodland at Stockeld hides surprises everywhere you look. From themed playgrounds to witches’ cottages, the kids were so excited, that they didn’t know where to go first. Every park had play equipment suitable for toddlers and older kids. Though our three-year-old refuses to go on anything for smaller kids so we usually end up following her around the bigger equipment, hoping she won’t fall off. Luckily, all of the play areas have either sand, woodchip or rubber flooring for safety. 

It can take a while to get around the enchanted forest, as there’s just so much to see, so set aside plenty of time for it. 

We were pleasantly surprised by the maze. It’s not as easy as we thought it would be. In keeping with the superhero theme, there are symbols for different superheroes dotted around for you to discover. If you’re a fan of Doctor Who, you’ll also find a TARDIS or two dotted around the maze.  

At the centre of the maze is a big silver globe. If you press the buttons around it, you will hear some wonderful facts about the world.

There’s a good size Go Kart track, with self-pedal karts available. We didn’t get the chance to go on these our kids were a little too small for them. If we were by ourselves, my husband and I would definitely have been racing around on them.

Filled with wooden, farm-themed activities, this part of the park is perfect for smaller kids. The grounds around it are landscaped and have some very real-looking artificial grass on them. Perfect for taking the chance to sit down and have a drink or a snack from the nearby snack hut.

This is the jewel in the crown of Stockeld Park. I’ve never seen such an amazing indoor play space for kids (and I’ve been to a lot). I was expecting a kind of soft play area, but it was an amazing space and air travel-themed adventure. There are spaceships, planes, hot air balloons and even a Mission Control where you can communicate via videos and microphones with other parts of the Playhive. The kids loved it and there were a lot of parents having the time of their lives too.

For £6, you can hire a boat to explore the lake. Each boat holds two people. Unfortunately, our youngest didn’t meet the height requirements for the boats, so I had to stand with her and watch as my son and his Dad had the time of their lives. You get to control the boat and it has a large rubber ring around it, so you can bump into other boats on the lake with it.

On the last play area on the route, is a fantastic spider-themed park, with is full of rope bridges and zip lines. We spent about an hour just in this part alone, as the kids chased each other around the giant spider and rope bridges.

There are plenty of places to eat and drink around the park. We had a few snacks in our bag as I’m never sure when I’m going to need to bribe my three-year-old with biscuits, but we chose to have our lunch in the food hall in the Playhive. There’s a range of packaged sandwiches, cakes and drinks but it really specialises in pizza and pasta. 

The kids split an adult-sized margarita pizza between them and my husband ordered Pizza Picante (£9.95). They all devoured them. I opted for a lasagne (£8.95). It’s not something I’d usually eat at lunch at a children’s play park, but I had spotted someone eating one as we came in and it looked lovely. It tasted fantastic, easily as good as some that I’ve ordered from actual restaurants. The only thing that would have made it better is if it had been served with a salad or garlic bread. 

There are also a number of kiosks spread throughout the park selling ice-creams, snacks and hot drinks. I’m never usually without a caramel latte in my hand so this was great. 

Before leaving, we went to the cafe and indulged in some ice cream and sugar cones. The hardest choice was deciding which of the amazing-looking flavours to get. 

If you want to bring your own food, there are plenty of picnic areas spread around the park. 

We needed to use the toilets and the baby change facilities a few times throughout the day. The facilities are excellent. They are clean and modern, with plenty of hand dryers. The baby change facility in the Playhive is a large separate room, with tonnes of space to fit all of the family in.

There are a number of toilets throughout the park so that you’re never too far away should nature call. 

We spent six hours at Stockeld Park and to be honest, we could have spent another six there. The kids were exhausted by the end of the day and we had to promise we’d bring them back again soon before they would get in the car. We weren’t lying either, we’ve already decided to come back at half term in October, with other members of our family and their kids. We can’t wait. 

So, now you know everything fun and cool about Stockeld Park you want to come visit, right? Whether you want to have a nice picnic, play on the go-karts or even see the dinosaurs- you and the family will have a fantastic family day out!

If you want to read more about Vikki and her family adventures, head on over to her website! She has lots of super blogs on some really cool places!

Looking for more things to do? There are many more adventure playgrounds for kids, zoos or putt a hole-in-one at some of the best mini-golf courses around.