BeWILDerwood - Cheshire

Date of visit 30/07/2024

We had seen BeWILDerwood advertised when we were visiting Norfolk a few years ago, and were pleased to see they also have a site in Cheshire, not too far away from where we were staying in Staffordshire, well 45 minutes, which was doable!

This is how they advertise themselves - "A huge, award winning forest of family fun and outdoor adventure. Treehouses, Wobbly Wires, Slippery Slopes, Crocklebogs, Twiggles and Boggles, storytelling..."

That sounded interesting, even if we didn't know what a Crocklebog was (apparently it looks a bit like a crocodile/dragon, is vegetarian and friendly.

We were on holiday with my daughter, her partner and their 2 children, so thought this would be a perfect place for all to let off some steam, and possibly give our Little One some challenges.

The tickets for BeWILDerwood weren't too badly priced, though I guess could be quite expensive if you have a large family. I was pleased to see they offered free carers tickets, with the usual evidence of eligibility, i.e. PIP or DLA letters, which they did ask for, but only took a cursory glance at. The other ticket offer that was a first for me, was the free ticket for pregnant women, over 20+ weeks!

The free paper map, issued upon entry, shows details of the different park areas and gives an indication of the suitability for various ages.

There are disabled toilets at each toilet point around the park.

Of note - the park isn't particularly wheelchair friendly. As the company say, the park is "built with sympathy to its natural environment", which is basically a forest. Most of the pathways are wood chip and there are many tree roots to trip the unwary or less mobile, or catch a wheel.

The owners indicate that a short pre-visit can be arranged with the park, to see if it is suitable for your or your child's needs - which is a first for the places I have visited. You can read more about that and how they are trying to meet the needs of those with disabilities in their Accessibility Statement.

Entering the park you have a couple of initial options. You can either go along the Loopy Lake Walk, or take the Treacherous Trail. It was a tough choice between Loopy and Treacherous, but we elected for the lake walk to start us of. The area is a wooden boardwalk and not too rough on the buggy wheels. We had elected to keep Little One in his buggy at this stage, due to the evidence of a lot of water - well, it is a lake walk, after all.

It was on this walk that we first encountered the front end of a Crocklebog, waving cheerily from the bushes, as we went further round the boardwalk we then found the rear end, well tail, of the Crocklebog. Vegetarian or not, I don't think I would want to get on the wrong side of one of these creatures.

We had decided to head for Slippery Slopes next, passing the back of Boggle Village and Toddlewood on the Hill, on our way!

Bad parents alert!!!

Having reached the Slippery Slopes we elected to do the biggest slide first, as it enabled three people to go down together, at the same time! Which was probably our first mistake.

There is a reasonable walk up to the top of the slide area, and a little bit of a wait at the top for your turn. Riders have to wear foot bags, to cover the shoes and stop their shoes catching on the way down the slide. The bags have straps on, which the rider is supposed to hold onto on the way down.

Our Little One didn't understand this, so after getting his feet into the bag I held onto the straps. Unbeknown to me, my wife was also holding onto Little One's hand, the result was that when we went down the slide, at slightly different times, Little One got pulled over and banged his head on the way down the slide.

He was a little shaken, but fine - credit to the staff here, someone immediately came over to check on him and to offer an ice pack, which was very good of them. We politely declined, knowing that Little One wouldn't tolerate an ice pack, and having assessed the injury ourselves decided that he was by and large fine, just a little stressed as he doesn't "do" unexpected discomfort!

Be aware, if you do ride the slide with your child, it would probably be as well to let them go by themselves or with just one person holding onto them, to avoid the sort of disaster we had.

In the same area as the slides we discovered some picnic tables and a couple of good accessible swings. As the site wasn't too busy Little One was able to spend a good 10 minutes on this swing, this calmed him down nicely from his previous encounter with the slide!

There was also a coracle swing here, which he always loves, clearly this may not be suitable for all, as there is no means to secure a child. However Little One is quite happy to just sit or lay in the swing and chill with the movement!

We had the opportunity to take part in one of the accessible activities on site, making nice paper band head gear, although I am not too sure that using staples is the most "accessible friendly" approach to this task. Supervision, as always is the key - that and knowledge of your child, obviously.

You can see how impressed he was to be wearing his new head gear - oh! and also the scrape above his left eye from his slide adventure! oops...

There was also the option to listen to some storytelling, at the Storytelling Stage, but knowing that Little One wouldn't pay attention, sit still long enough, or understand the stories we elected not to do this accessible activity.

Much of the rest of the park is taken up with lots of similar type areas, with large well built wooden mazes, both on and above ground, more slippery slope slides, cargo nets to clamber over and small spaces to crawl through (if you're an adult). There is plenty here for all abilities, excepting the earlier caveat concerning wheelchair accessibility. Let your imagination, and your child run free (supervised, obviously).

We were really glad that we had finally come to BeWILDerwood. To be truthful, I am not sure our Little One would have got as much out of it when he was younger, at nearly 8 and a small for his age, this was perfect for him. There wasn't anything physical he couldn't take part in.

If you are considering visiting, and are able to take the park up on their offer of a pre-visit, it might be worthwhile, just to make sure this is the place for your child!

Enjoy, we did.

I couldn't finish, without sharing my favourite moment of the day. As I have mentioned previously, my wife and I are well into our 60s now and that my wife can get a bit down sometimes.... but here's her, and my daughter, acting like big kids and enjoying the Wobbly Wires, even if she was going backwards!