Danby Lodge National Park Centre — Attraction in Great Britain

My wife and I visited Danby Lodge in September 2024 on a day trip driving around the North York Moors. Luckily we had great weather to enjoy all the fresh air and outdoors had to offer. There are lots of activities to enjoy around the site of this former hunting lodge to Danby Castle.

There is a nice short walking trail that takes you around the grounds with several attractions along the way. The Danby Den playground is excellent and novel. The water bailiff audio guide was an interesting take. The dragon. The mud kitchen. The zip line. All excellent fun for the young ones.

We crossed the river Esk and walked up to Danby Castle. A lovely stroll across the moors without being too long or strenuous.

Crow Wood is adjacent to the parking lot and has the bird watching hut and a few other notable attractions around the loop.

There is a cafe serving hot drinks and snacks that was most welcome. In the same area there is an interactive nature exhibit intended for kids to learn about the environment. Its all really well done and we wished we had come here when our lad were a nipper.

Entry is free but paring has a small fee. Parking lot is pretty big and we had no problem finding a spot. It was an off-season weekday and was pretty quiet. I can imagine summer weekends this place would be teeming with families.

Great fun and highly recommended if you are...

Amazing place if it's sunny, still plenty to do if it's not! Parking is ample with an overflow on a field opposite if needed. As of August 2017 it was £2.50 for 2 hours, £4.50 for 4 hours and I think there was an all day option for around £6 or so but I can't remember.

There's a large field perfect for picnics and a kick about with the kids, there are a few picnic tables dotted around too.

There's a nice play area with swing things, climbing frames, slide etc and a nice little walk which takes you past a fantastic wooden dragon perfect for photos.

There's a river walk which we didn't have time for too.

The centre itself is free and has lots of interesting things to see and do including a rock climbing room which my kids loved.

There's a lovely cafe with outdoor seating and although we only got ice creams they were very reasonably priced at just over £5 for 4.

We did have a slight issue on our last visit which caused my daughter to receive a slight injury. Not related to the centre at all and a pure accident and I didn't think to use the centre for help, we just went home but after contacting the management they informed me that there are first aid trained staff and first aid kits in the centre and the staff would have been only too happy to help.

Overall a...

This center is free to visit, however the charge is on the carpark, which you can now pay gor via the phone app. The centre has recently has an upgrade which is lovely. The day we visited there was charity in the garden asking if you wanted to draw a picture onto a postcard so it could be sent to elderly people living alone. This was a brilliant idea. Tilly greatly enjoyed creating a 'happy' postcard. They were also doing story telling in the garden and t-shirt printing which required booking onto. You could do this before arrival, later ones weren't too bad in terms of spaces though, but if you wanted specific times, best to book! We walked through the centre first. Toilets are available here. Cafe next door to centre. There was an artist exhibition on to view, along with museum artifacts to do with our local area. We went for a walk around the visitor centre, there are some sculptures new to the centre and lots of play equipment. Tilly enjoyed this. We then went over to the fairy Wood which was lovely on the baking hot day it was, this was very shaded and cool! We searched out the little fairy homes. Tilly enjoyed this along with watching very quietly at...