Prince Charles opens adventure playground on his Scottish estate
A treehouse fit for a prince! Charles embraces his inner child as he opens a nature-based adventure park at his Scottish stately home Dumfries House
- The 300-square metre playground has been designed to immerse kids in nature
- It features rope bridges, a netting tunnel, two racing slides and a tube slide
- Design was inspired by George’s treehouse which belonged to William and Harry
- Prince Charles, 73, explored the park with pupils from a local school yesterday
If you are going to design a treehouse, then you may as well base it on one that’s fit for young members of the Royal Family.
And that’s just what Prince Charles has done with the centrepiece of a new nature-based adventure park in Scotland. He has commissioned a 3,000sq ft wooden playground nestled 20ft up among the trees on his charity’s estate at Dumfries House in Ayrshire.
And the central play tower, made from sustainably sourced English chestnut, takes inspiration from Prince George’s treehouse at Highgrove.
The original – with a pointed thatched roof – was built for Princes William and Harry at Charles’s Gloucestershire home for William’s seventh birthday in 1989. It was refurbished for George in 2015.
Yesterday future king Charles, 73, revealed his inner child as he gleefully explored the new play area, making his way across the bridges and even walking through the long, suspended netting tunnel.
Prince Charles, pictured at the park, followed the children along the longest of the suspended wobble bridges, occasionally holding on to the netted side and smiling as it swayed
The royal, pictured with local children from nearby Muirkirk Primary School, was said to have enjoyed watching the youngsters explore the park at the opening
The rustic wooden playground features elevated rope bridges, a netting tunnel, two side-by-side racing slides and a tube slide (pictured)
He also encouraged youngsters from nearby Muirkirk Primary School to race each other on the parallel slides, which have been built big enough for adults to encourage family fun.
Commissioned by Charles’ charitable organisation The Prince’s Foundation, the park is designed to encourage children to immerse themselves in nature, boosting their physical wellbeing and mental health in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Charles chatted to youngsters as they clambered around. ‘Have you enjoyed it? Have you run around the whole thing? Which bit do you like most? You like all of it – great,’ he said.
Paul Travers, of Creating Adventurous Places (CAP.Co) which designed the structure, said: ‘He thought it was fantastic… He didn’t go on the slide but he encouraged the children to go down and he watched them as they raced.
‘I think he said, “Let’s see how fast you can go”. He did go across the suspension bridge. He enjoyed it and said it was great fun.’
The prince chuckled as he watched one boy jump from a height on to the ground in front of his feet, pointing and saying: ‘That’s what I like to see.’
The Prince of Wales with pupils from Muirkirk Primary School, in a nature-based children’s adventure playpark
The playground’s design was inspired by Charles’ belief in the importance of understanding the ‘balance, the order and the relationships between ourselves and the natural world’
The playground draws on Charles’s own ‘philosophy of harmony’ and his belief in the importance of understanding the ‘balance, the order and the relationships between ourselves and the natural world’.
The design of the new playpark is intended to complement the nearby towering 35-metre-high sequoia redwood trees, and gives youngsters an aerial view of the nearby maze.
Gordon Neil, executive director of The Prince’s Foundation, said: ‘The work of The Prince’s Foundation is inspired by HRH The Prince of Wales’s philosophy of harmony: that by understanding the balance, the order and the relationships between ourselves and the natural world we can create a more sustainable future.
‘Encouraging young people to engage with, and learn from, nature is at the heart of everything we do as a charity.
‘We are delighted to expand the range of nature-based activities available to estate visitors with the opening of our new adventure playground and are very much looking forward to seeing families enjoy it.’
Plans for the park were submitted to the local council last March, and approved by May, with planning officers agreeing that the venue offered benefits for tourism as well as locals
General admission to the estate is free and it is open 365 days a year from dawn to dusk.
The initiative also follows in the footsteps of the Duchess of Cambridge – a key champion of outdoor woodland play.
Kate designed her own Back to Nature garden for the Chelsea Flower Show in 2019, which featured a tree house, waterfall, rustic den and a campfire.
She has stressed how spending time outdoors can help children grow up to become ‘happy, healthy adults’, and says her own youngsters – George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis – are ‘dragged outside’ whatever the weather.
The duchess also opened a children’s playground at RHS Wisley in Surrey, inspired by her garden, featuring a rope swing, tepee hideaway and a tree house.
Construction of the playpark was funded by supporters meeting environmental objectives including EB Scotland, the foundation said.
The prince led a consortium of charities and the Scottish Government to save Dumfries House ‘for the nation’ with a last-ditch £45million purchase in 2007, with his own charitable foundation contributing £20million.
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