Hengrove Playground

A surprisingly amazing playground in a pretty rough and ready place. If you don’t know the area, you may well not realise its there, but it’s well worth a bit of a explore if you have any children who want to let off some steam.
It gets very busy when the sun shines but there is plenty of grassy areas to set up a picnic and watch the world go buy. The local council has kept the area neat and tidy, and most importantly there is no glass or other dangerous materials to be found. Thankfully too, Bristol’s underage boozers seemingly haven’t discovered it yet.
If no-​one is around, hop on yourself. It’s a fantastic way to keep fit and faaar more fun than the gym!

Hengrove Leisure Park is a pretty depressing place. It’s basically a large car park with the usual ‘attractions’: multiplex, bingo hall, McDonald’s, Frankie and Benny’s, etc.
However, sitting just behind it is this fantastic playground. Honestly, they didn’t take make them like this when I was a kid. It’s got some great attractions. The main one is a spider’s web-​esque climbing frame which is made of rope and branches out to at least 30 feet high. Once you’ve negotiated the maze of ladders and webs to the centre (yes, I did have several goes), you can slide back down to the bottom.
There’s also a series of rocks which fire water at you as you run down and a large hamster-​style wheel which you seriously don’t want to go on if you’re an adult (trust me — I fell over). A great place to take the kids to burn off some calories while you sit in the café if you’ve just been to the cinema next door.