Home to 17 generations of the Devonshire family, the architectural masterpiece that is Chatsworth, with 105 acre garden – the product of nearly 500 years of careful cultivation will be high on anyone’s list to visit.
Along with the farmyard and woodland playground they also cater for the smaller members of the family, and have done so with gusto. Not only does it feature a myriad of adventurous playing opportunities, but it’s been beautifully and thoughtfully built.
Featuring giant towers for a birds eye view of the tree tops, sky high rope bridges and shiny new slides, Chatsworth have pulled out all the stops to entertain the nippers. Each tower is connected by rope bridges and crawl tunnel, with a raised platform at the centre. Children can communicate between the towers on the ‘flower phone’, and can race down a choice of four slides – one of which is a spiral slide, and one is over 12 metres long.
They can climb into the wooden, giant Great Spotted Woodpecker, mount the log tangle and subsequently shoot off down a zip wire. If that wasn’t enough, there are climbing frames, swings, a giant sand play area, and an Archimedes screw to fetch water from the stream.
Whilst playing, they can learn too as there are activity boards including a spinning pairs game and an activity board that celebrates the importance of bees to our environment, this includes braille dominoes and other stimulus for visually impaired visitors.
Nothing like what we had in our days, ‘o course we had it tough….’