New Pirate Play Area
We’re delighted to have opened phase one of our brand new Pirate Adventure Play area
Shiver me timbers! Can you believe that some areas of our original Pirate Adventure Play are almost 30 years old?! It’s a firm family favourite with our guests. So don’t worry, the pirate-theme is here to stay. But as it comes to the end of it’s lifespan, we needed to start planning for it’s replacement to ensure guests can continue enjoying “playing pirate”, for many more years to come!
It was therefore time for the old sunken pirate ship to ‘walk the plank’ and make way for something new. And we’re so excited to say phase one, ‘Pirate Island’, is now complete!
“We’re so excited to begin our investment in redeveloping our hugely popular Pirate Adventure Play area. It has served us well for nearly 30 years and we understand how much our visitors love it so it was important to us to remain true to the pirate theme but reimagine it to take advantage of the advancement in playground design and product development. We’ve been able to use these opportunity to work with local suppliers to install a much more sustainable play area in line with Folly Farm’s business goals and offer more accessible elements along with much greater play value.”
Chris Ebsworth, managing director, folly farm
Adventure Playgrounds Wales, a Cardigan based company, helped us to design the concept for replacing the existing pirate play area sustainably, using Lappset equipment and the best quality Scandinavian hard-wood, with the entire Pirate Adventure Play project planned across three separate phases over the next couple of years. ‘Pirate Island’ is phase one, which will be followed by reimagining the ‘Pirate Ship’ and the ‘Pirate Fort’ in phases two and three. Red Lynch Leisure installed ‘Pirate Island’ this Autumn, working through some horrendous weather conditions, and guests visiting over the last month have already been trying it out.
“Growing demand for sustainable products propagates interest in our company as we become increasingly sympathetic to environmental causes. The transportation distances from the sawmills to the Lappset factory are relatively short as all timber comes from certified Finnish forests.”
LAPPSET
Being an environmentally conscious business, we were pleased to work with companies that followed this ethos during this project. Lappset tracks the origin of the wood it uses in its designs which means it knows exactly which commercial forest the sawn timber comes from. And because this is closely monitored, we can trust the raw material has been sourced from responsibly managed forests. Plus, the wood waste is recycled into thermal energy for the district heating plant located opposite the Lappset factory and helps heat the homes of local residents. Amazing!
“The ability of wood to bind carbon dioxide remains throughout its entire life cycle. Therefore, a product made of wood leaves a small carbon footprint compared to a similar product made of metal or plastic.”
LAPPSET
This new development inhabits the space of the original sunken pirate ship and offers greater play value including an impressively tall treehouse and slide, pirate flag, climbing areas and slides that your little swashbucklers will spend ages exploring. Also featuring two wheelchair accessible ramps with low, wheelchair height interactive play areas, a companion slide and wet pour rubber surfaces in various sections, this new development can also be enjoyed by guests with some additional and accessibility needs too!
Young shipmates have already been exploring the interactive play features on Pirate Island and we can’t wait to see what phase two and three bring. But one thing’s for sure – our popular Pirate Adventure Play theme will remain – and be bigger and better than ever before!
Stay tuned for updates on the next phase on this pirate adventure…
