Osterley Park and House – and Our First Time in a Canoe

It was a sunny day so I suggested we travel to West London to try Osterley Park and House – our National Trust membership has just renewed for an eighth year so I wanted to use it as quickly as possible.

Osterley Park and House is over in West London, around an hour for us in the car. You arrive and you wouldn’t feel like you’re in London at all, apart from being underneath the Heathrow flight path, so you see a plane every minute or so.

Osterley Park and House

Osterley House dates back to Tudor times – we ran out of time to investigate so we’ll have to go back. We were going to combine a trip with Syon House but ran out of time – there was way more to do than we thought.

The National Trust website mentions sports activities in Osterley Park, so we headed there as it sounded like something fun to do. Little did we know it would be a LOT of fun. H has played badminton twice now, so any excuse to find some space to have a proper game, right? (and they provide racquets too)

Osterley Park and House badminton

 

In conjunction with the National Trust, a local canoeing club offer you a 30-45 minute canoe around the pond there. At £6 per person we thought it was pretty reasonable – the main issue for me was how deep was the lake?

It isn’t that deep at all, probably up to H’s shoulders, so we could have stood comfortably in there had we fallen out. Nonetheless, we wore life jackets and I instantly wondered what on earth I was getting myself into.

Canoeing at Osterley Park and House

The canoe sessions are running until October, and are definitely worth doing! For the more experienced canoeist you could take one on your own. If there are just the two of you, there are plenty of two man canoes. Ours holds three people so we didn’t get wet (you do in the canoes for two). My feet still ended up soaked but oh my, it was GREAT fun! We went around the lake twice, and ended up exhausted – it took a short while to get our rhythm as well as making sure none of us shuffled around too much.

But that’s not all, because Osterley Park has a trail – a natural play trail. How cool is that? If you head for the long walk around the grounds you’ll find it. There are plenty of bits of wood marked like this

Osterley Park and House arrow

You come across wooden features like this

Osterley Park and House wooden climbing natural play

and this

Osterley Park and House natural play 2

or this

Osterley Park rope swing

and even this

Osterley Park and House Rope Swing 2

until you reach the really big natural play area with this

Osterley Park and House giant swing

and a tree you can climb which is a really good tree for climbing, with a ‘climb chime’ half way up.

Osterley Park and House Chime Climb

and this – but of course who needs an invitation when it comes to building dens?

Osterley Park and House den arena

We could have spent far longer at Osterley Park and House, which means we’ll just have to go back. Next time we’ll combine it with that trip to Syon Park we didn’t manage to get to.

Here’s their website.

Country Kids

10 Comments

  1. oh wow, there is a lot to do there! My kids have been canoeing and they loved it, we’ll have to do it again some day. It looks like you had a lovely day and I can see why you didn’t have time to do everything.
    #countrykids

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  2. What a fabulous place to spend the day, there really is so much to see and do there! H looks like she’s having a fab time exploring all the adventure play equipment they have there, I bet you could spend days there and still not feel bored. I look forward to reading more adventures from Osterley Park next time you visit.

    Thanks for sharing with me on #CountryKids.

    Reply

  3. What a lovely place to go canoeing and lots of other great stuff to do too! You don’t always associate London with National Trust membership but there are some great places to visit there too aren’t there? #countrykids

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  4. I can’t quite believe there is so much to do in just the one place. So envious of your canoe outing – this is something I’ve wanted to try with the kids for a long time.
    #CountryKids

    Reply

  5. My kids love to canoe so this woudl be right up their street and you are right, £6 is really reasonable. I think we might try and plan a trip up there later this month. Thanks, Mich x

    Reply

  6. Wow! What a great place. I haven’t been canoeing for years but I would love to give it ago again #CountryKids

    Reply

  7. This is another place that’s been on my to do list for ages after an NCT friend recommended it. I’m not sure I could cope with the canoe with both me and my son being in it but well done to you for doing it. Looks like lots of fun was had #CountryKids

    Reply

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