Winkworth Arboretum is a perfect National Trust to visit if you’re looking for woodland walks, natural play areas for the children and lakes to walk around.
I love having a National Trust membership, it gives you new places to explore as a family and quite often I never would have found out about them. After finding Winkworth Arboretum on the map we took a drive out to find it and ended up having a really lovely walk around together.
Winkworth Arboretum
It’s a really lovely sized National Trust venue, and it doesn’t have a manicured feeling to it, a much more natural feeling. With woodlands to explore, things to climb and relaxed feeling paths to explore.
Once parked up we walked through to the entrance, which currently is a couple of woodland looking buildings. One for the cafe, and one for the tickets.
Once through the entrance there is a small toilet block, be aware I think this is the only toilet.
We came across a great play area for the children, with stepping stones leading through to the play area. It’s great to see a large piece of play equipment for older children.
There are a few different well-marked paths you can take around the woods, but we decided to head down to the lake. We went down some steep steps to get to the lake, but there seemed to be lots of different paths around.
Once we got down to the lake there was a little woodland hut on the edge of the water. It’s super cute and filled with plaques telling you all about the history of this building. It was currently being used as a photoshoot though, with a lady in a very beautiful red dress posing in the doorway. I would have loved to see the photos after as I reckon they would have looked amazing.
We took the path to the right around the lake, where you can walk all the way around the lake and around the woodland edges. Once we had got to the end of the lake we took some very steep steps back up the hill to the top and through the woods back to the cafe area.
Stopping off for ice cream as there were some picnic tables outside here to sit and have lunch, but there were plenty of picnic places to stop off and lay a picnic rug down.
We had a lovely couple of hours at Winkworth Arboretum and would love to return again.
Pictures Taken July 2020
Tips For Winkworth Arboretum
- One toilet block at the start
- Parking
- Easy to find
- Great for children
- Play area
- Dogs on leads
- Cafe
- Lake, woodlands and paths
- Accessible route available, but rough ground and steep paths
- Free entry with National Trust membership
16 Comments
We get so much use out of our NT membership, will add Winkworth Arboretum to my list, it looks stunning
Great place for the kids to run around for a couple of hours, thanks
What a beautiful place to explore! I’m always discovering new places through the National Trust too – it’s amazing how many locations they have.
So many aren’t there, it’s a beautiful place
That’s such a stunning place to go visit with the family. It’s great they have a large piece of play equipment for older children. That way all the family is happy.
Not often you find the larger play area stuff is it!
I love an arboretum, especially at this time of year. I am missing using my NT membership but with the way this year has been its hardly surprising we’ve not had the use out them sadly x
Yeah we’ve had a couple of early morning bookings to get a slot of them, but hopefully, we can still support them and they can stay open. Would hate for them to shut and lose these places
Ah this looks so lovely. We are hoping to go to a local arboretum too! They are gorgeous at this time of year x
They’re stunning this time of the year, there a wonderful place to visit any time of their but Autumn is so colourful
This looks and sounds amaiNg, we love a national trust place but now we are in local lockdown our passes are going to waste and it’s such a shame. This looks like a great place to explore xz
Ahhhh no what a shame, I hope you can get back out there soon and they can lift the restrictions
We have been thinking of getting National Trust membership for some time. This looks like a fab day out.
Do it! It’s great to support them. It’s harder currently as everything needs to be booked, but we’ve had ours about 4 years now and had some wonderful days out
Ooh wow this place loks gorgoues and perfect for a nature inspired day out – Love the National Trust and try to make the most of my membership so this one is going on the list of places to visit
Laura x
I would love to tick them all off!