Crow Wood Playscape

Crow Wood Playscape offers in risky, challenging and exciting play for children of all ages, reconnecting children with nature to get them exploring, running, climbing, crawling and sliding again, challenging their boundaries, and getting active and fit in the process.

The design aproach rejected preconceived notions of a playground in favour of a more natural approach to play and a return to simple pleasures, encouraging engagement with natural surroundings and taking acceptable levels of risk.

Davies White worked with local young people in a number of activities such as design workshop sessions, visits to tree nurseries, boulder quarries and other parks to explore what’s already out there. To ensure the long term sustainability the team responsible for the maintenance of the space were also engaged in the early design stages.

Crow Wood Playscape is the first Playscape to be completed within a historic landscape setting. It is now considered the template for play space design within the National Trust.

Overview

  • Project Name

    Crow Wood Playscape

  • Location

    Lyme Park, Cheshire

  • Category

    Heritage, culture, art

  • Landscape Architect

    Davies White Landscape Architects

  • Client

    National Trust

  • Brief

    To engage, design and create a landmark destination play area, providing an accessible, inclusive and truly innovative woodland playspace for young and old.

  • Awards

    Commended LI Awards 2011, Design under 1ha category

Details

  • Project Team

    Project Managers: Groundwork Cheshire; Quantity Surveyors: BCA Project Services; Access Consultants: Access Collaboration

  • Year Completed

    2010

  • Project Size

    2000 square metres

  • Contract Value

    295k

  • Capital Funding

    WREN Waste Recycling Trust

Technicals

  • Materials

    Reclaimed materials have been used throughout and the play space features tunnels from drain pipes, timber reclaimed from sea groynes, logs from fallen trees, boulders, grassy mounds, shrubs and trees combined with popular play equipment such as swings and slides to create a playful landscape offering reasonable risk and exciting challenges. The soil used to create the mounds came from onsite excavations and as a result has diverted materials from going to landfill.

  • Davies White Landscape Architects

    Profile

  • Approximate Map Location

    Location

    Lyme Park, Cheshire

  • Share