Yorkshire Sculpture Park unveils new family friendly outdoor play space

An exciting new place to play, discover and imagine, Little Wild Wood at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) is set to open in time for the Easter holidays, building on the charity’s reputation as one of Yorkshire’s premier family visitor attractions.

The family-friendly Little Wild Wood has nature and creativity at its heart and sits within two of YSP’s 500 acres of beautiful landscape. It has been created predominantly using sustainable natural materials that have been foraged or repurposed from other areas of the Park. YSP’s talented Technical Team has utilised windfall trees, stumps, willow and refurbished picnic benches to create the brand-new space for our younger visitors to enjoy.

Located next to the main Visitor Centre, Little Wild Wood welcomes you in with tunnels made from natural willow, leading to a vibrant willow dome. It then opens up into a magical woodland to reveal teepees where families can build dens together, and tree stump stepping stones and raised wooden platforms to adventure across. There is even a wooden house which encourages imaginative play, where children can get creative with found natural materials and invent their own games and stories.

Celebrated local sculptor Brian Fell, whose studio is based at YSP, has also generously donated three giant sculptures to Little Wild Wood – a two-metre-high desert rat, a towering pineapple and a 360-degree onion seat – specially for children to discover and explore.

Director of YSP Clare Lilley said: “We’re really excited by Little Wild Wood and know it’s something our new and regular visitors will love. Creative play is central to YSP’s cause – play at all ages improves our physical, social, cognitive and emotional well-being and is an essential element of children’s learning and development.”

This easily accessible art and nature play area enables young visitors to get messy and make their own playground in nature. It adds another element to an already rich offer at YSP, sitting alongside our award-winning galleries, shops, restaurants, outdoor sculpture and beautiful, sprawling landscape. It also complements YSP’s Hidden Forest, another permanent outdoor creative woodland, specifically designed for under-5s, which is open for special activity sessions on advertised dates throughout the year.

With a degree of freedom that is not available in the classroom or even many homes, children can visit Little Wild Wood to make and build, lift and carry, get muddy, create their own games and natural sculptures, think through challenges, bond with others and be inspired, but most of all, have fun.