Dragons at the ready!

Barnard Adventure Playground isn’t just home to a dragon – we’ve got jaw-dropping canyon cliff rope swings too. Come and jump from a platform across a swamp of hungry crocodiles. Let your imagination loose!

Feeling bold? You can put on the performance of a lifetime to a crowd of adoring fans in our amphitheatre, or swing out of the limelight and onto a rope bridge if you want to test your strength and agility. Climbing tunnel I hear you say? Yes, we’ve got one of those. Climbing wall? Yes, we’ve got that too. A zip wire? Well of course we have a zip wire.

Perhaps you fancy a spot of cooking using our outdoor pizza oven, toasting marshmallows on an open fire, or growing some fruit and veg. Or maybe cooking up some old-fashioned mud pies is more your style.

And after all that, if you’ve still not had your fill, come and kick a ball or shoot some hoops in our sports area.

Play is free for six to thirteen-year-olds and supervised by our Awesome playworkers – all you have to do is register and have fun. Oh, and Barnard Adventure Playground isn’t just for dragon fans – we have plenty of budding scientists, explorers, writers, artists, footballers and paleontologists too!

Barnard Adventure Playground is thought to be the oldest adventure playground in the borough. There was a time when it was located further down the hill and called Barnsbury, with the old glass factory as the playground’s first building. Back then, everything at the playground was built by the children, apart from the zoo and the dog’s kennel. Lots of animals lived on the site: guinea pigs, sheep, and even a monkey called Pinky! The playground later became famed for hosting its annual ‘Sun Splash’ festival.