🌳 Outdoor🌲 WoodlandGardensEducational
What’s there
- Café on site
- Paid parking
- Baby changing
- Picnic area
Three car parks (entrance, Elgins grass car park, and Shell House car park). Non-member car parking is charged (£9 per car in the NT's current listing); National Trust members park free.
Only facilities we’ve confirmed are listed — anything missing here we simply haven’t checked, rather than know to be absent.
Hatfield Forest is a large National Nature Reserve in Essex, once a royal hunting ground, where families can spend an open-air day among old oaks, grassland and woodland trails. The surface is mostly wide open space and grassy rides between the coppiced woods, so children have plenty of room to run about, and there are boardwalks and paths to explore on foot or by bike. The lakeside area is the main hub, with a cafe overlooking the water, picnic benches and a summer rowing boat hire from the pontoon by the Shell House, an 18th-century Georgian pavilion built for entertainment. Younger visitors can follow a geocaching trail, take on a few of the National Trust's 50 things to do before you are 11 and three quarters, and look out for wildlife on the lake, including birds seen from the hide. The site is free to walk around, though there is a charge for parking by car.
Stuff to take with you
The things people wish they’d packed for a day out like this one.
- Wellies
- Refillable water bottleMost places will fill it for free.
- Snacks that survive a rucksackCheaper than the café, and buys you twenty minutes.
- Wet wipes
- Mesh bag for shellsThe sand falls out before it reaches the car.
- WhistleThree blasts means come and find me.
- Waterproof jacket
- Audiobook or story CD
- Cool bag
- Tissues
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