50 things to do before you’re 11 ¾ at Hatchlands Park

We’ve got loads of open parkland and woodland, full of everything you need for excellent adventures. You can complete 19 of our 50 things activities here, so head for Hatchlands to start ticking stuff off your list and adding new stickers to your scrapbook.

The viewpoint at Hatchlands Park
Hatchlands Park   Surrey

Hill rolling

02 – Roll down a really big hill. Head out towards our woodland and between Great-Wix and Little-Wix woods, you’ll find a big grassy hillside ripe for rolling down. You might want to plan your route carefully as our cows sometimes roll around here too.

Children den building
Hatchlands Park   Surrey

Wood work

04 – Build a den & 12 – Make a trail with sticks. Take a trip to our natural adventure area. There’s a big wood pile with branches, bark, leaves and everything else you need to build a great woodland den. Pick out some of the straight sticks and use them as arrows to make a trail that twists and turns around trees and over logs. How long can you make your trail?

Children in the rain
Hatchlands Park   Surrey

Rainy day fun

06 – Run around in the rain & 13 – Make a mud pie. You can still have fun on a rainy day. There’s plenty of room to run around and when it’s wet there’s mud, glorious mud. Don’t forget about the cows though, make sure it’s the right kind of mud in your mud pie.

Children flying a kite
Hatchlands Park   Surrey

Parkland playtime

07 – Fly a kite, 25 – Make a grass trumpet & 16 – Make a daisy chain. Our big, open parkland means there’s plenty of space to fly a kite. It also means that if you look carefully you’ll find just the right type of grass for trumpeting with wider blades for maximum volume. Amongst the grasses you'll find daisies to pick and make a chain from - how long can you make it?

Apples hanging from the tree
Hatchlands Park   Surrey

Fruit-a-licious

09 – Eat an apple straight from the tree & 21 – Pick blackberries growing in the wild. In autumn, you can find both of these delicious fruits here. There are blackberries in some of our hedgerows and apple trees dotted around the park. Make sure you wash them before you eat them.

Conkers on the ground
Hatchlands Park   Surrey

Bonkers for conkers

10 – Play conkers. We have lots of huge horse chestnut trees ready to provide you with battle worthy 76’ers. Bring a string and a playing partner, and smash away. Mind your knuckles.

Fallen tree at Hatchlands Park
Hatchlands Park   Surrey

Tree-mendous times

01 – Climb a tree, 22 – Explore inside a tree & 33 – Catch a falling leaf. We leave dead wood in the park as a habitat for wildlife so there are fallen trees to walk on and some still standing with holes and lightning strikes to peer into. You can’t climb up these trees because they’re not strong enough. If you want to climb then pick a strong, live tree with branches close to the ground so you can get up and down easily - if you’re not sure ask us. Try to catch an autumn leaf as it falls – it’s harder than you think.

Children wildlife watching
Hatchlands Park   Surrey

Animal magic

34 – Track wild animals & 44 – Go bird watching. Our woodland is a great place to search for animal tracks, wait for a wet day when the ground is soft to see footprints. There are loads of birds to spot too. Check for Egyptian geese by the pond, woodpeckers in the woodland and see birds of prey in the park.

Children on a bug hunt
Hatchlands Park   Surrey

Bugging out

31 – Hunt for bugs. Because of the dead wood we leave around there are hundreds of species of bugs for you to find, including some that are really rare. Check under big logs or stones, in the dead wood piles and the holes in standing trees.

Serotine bat flying at night

Nature walks 

40 – Go on a nature walk at night. We run guided bat walks throughout the year. In summer, you can come along at dusk for our bat walks – an expert will take you around the park searching for the 10 species of bat we have here. You'll even get to use a special bat detector. Check our events page for details.

More events
Girl with a GPS device

Buried treasure 

49 – Find a geocache. The newest on our Hatchlands list of 50 things, you can now visit us and join in with the world’s largest treasure hunt. All you need to get into geocaching is a smartphone or GPS device and you can start searching for stashes all over the globe.

Start your treasure hunt