Gruffalo Trail - Thorndon Country Park, Brentwood

Bookings are now open. We are taking strictly between 10.30am and 1pm Monday to Friday or you can pop in and book anytime. Although we ask to you to avoid Saturday and Sunday lunchtimes. Please call 01277 232944 to book, please have a time and date you would like to book in mind.

Who is coming tomorrow for our last Bubbly fun of the holidays?

Less than a week to go! the weather is looking great for Friday evening so why not round up some friends and come and spend the summer evening with us! booking essential call 01277 232944 to book

Alice and her friends are coming to Thorndon on the 28th. Come along and help them on their adventure. Booking essential, see event for full details

We still have tickets left for this amazing adventure!

Less than a month to go for this event! Perfect way to spend a summer evening! https://www.facebook.com/116767691675874/ posts/2082126328473324/

We still have a few spaces available for this Saturdays event. Call 01277 232944 to book

https://www.facebook.com/events/810341452 482723/

https://www.facebook.com/thorndoncp/posts /1984206641598627

What a brilliant place!!! We loved it, nice and clean and tidy, with very friendly entertaining staff and with lots to do and it's all FREE even free cake! Had a man blowing giant bubbles which the kids love! Just the best afternoon out!

Even has a cute little cafe! Only tiny downside is that the gruffalo souvenirs are super expensive

We took my grandsons (aged 5 and 3) and they had great fun finding the animals and having photos taken at each one. Little bit of exploring too. Just long enough for little legs! A great way to get them out in the fresh air!

We had a fab day following the gruffalo trail and doing the Easter egg hunt. My 4 year old loved it and so did my two dogs. We had lunch before we set off which a little on the expensive side for average food. The kids lunch bag at near £5 for one slice of bread made in to a cheese sandwich, a drink, some raisins, a baby bel and a frube was very steep. Next time would take a picnic.

Was a lovely,fun great day.. only problem I found was that if I had not used the toilet I wouldn't have know where the gruffalo trail starts. Otherwise, I had downloaded the app and the photos with the stars of the books made my daughter very happy.

Visited for the first time today with my little girl and husband. We loved it, had a great time first following the Gruffalo trail to find, the mouse, fox, owl, snake, gruffalo's child and The gruffalo, our little girl loved finding them. We then went off for a 'nature walk' into the rest of the woods and had fun climbing trees, crunching in leaves and listening to birds. We will be back again and maybe hire bikes from the bike hire cabin to go for a real adventure ��

Visited for the 1st time with my 1 boys, oldest 7 and youngest 2 and they both loved it, great value for money £4 for all day park. Will definitely be going back soon

Took my 3 year old grandson to see Santa. He loved the whole experience, talking to the elves, meeting Santa, riding on the train through the woods and seeing some of the Gruffalo characters, perfectly finished off with a cup of hot chocolate and a gingerbread man! Well done to all for creating such a magical adventure!

The older lady in the shop today was amazing with our daughter she has autism she gave our daughter the time she needed and let her talk at her own pace it was lovely a huge thank you xoxo

One of my favourite family places.

Parking is fine 90% of the time. Forest is beautiful and safe! Great in the Autumn and the summer. Purpose built toilets are a god-send and a lovely little cafe and shop.

My kids 5 and 11 loved it here! We spent a couple of hours exploring and my youngest was very excited by the gruffalo trail! We would have loved a play area of some kind at the end but my boys made up their own adventures in the trees! One of the nicest forests I've ever been to! Cafe was lovely and we spent on toys which were expensive! X

Lovely park. Both my boys had lots of fun. And was very pleasantly surprised to find a choice of dairy free ice cream available so my youngest didn’t have to miss out on treat!

Lovely day out with friends, even though my son is only 4 months it was still fun he was looking all around and out friends children really enjoyed looking for the characters and using the map. Definitely a new place to come out for the day

Husband and I went yesterday. We went with our two daughters and our two 2yr old grandsons, being our daughters boys. Our two grandsons know the gruffalo story and characters very well so were so excited when they spotted each one. They loved the freedom of running around the trees and into the woodland areas. The boys had great fun picking up sticks and also going into the stick caves they found. Paying for just the car parking was fantastic, we wish there were more places like this, such a great idea for kids. We spent 2 hours there but you could easily double that and more if you spent more time in woods and sand areas. People in the shop and cafe very polite and whole place very clean. Theres also many wild birds and squirrels around to see. Only one thing letting this place down and that was some of the general public letting their dogs off lead to run in and out of the woodland and some dogs were very big!! Not good when you have children running about and very selfish of them.

Been twice now with my four year old and he enjoyed it more now he's older. He was able to read the map and know which character was coming up. He looked at the trees and some of the foliage, even throwing dogs for our dog to fetch. All in all a fun time out for all the family!

When we went the weather court us out n it was colder then expected.but beautiful park the forest is peaceful place early in morning tranquil.

But I also went last Sunday and left feeling like I had a weight lifted off & More motivation And I even hugged a tree.

I’d recommend it to anyone

And I can’t wait to visit in summer I bet it looks beautiful full of colour

Lovely time difficult to find where you get map from.ask and found it was in cafe.my great grandson wanted a gruffalo toy.ask again with the rangers sitting at the cafe table and was told it was at the cafe which by this time lunchtime and quite a queue. So did not have time to purchase so upset grandson

Great cheap day out with the children. You do have to pay to park your car £1-£5 depending on how long you want to stay and the charge does apply to Blue Badge owners too. Buy the map for 50p but avoid buying anything else in the shop, it is very expensive, take a picnic and spend the day in the forest :)

Enjoy in the wood land.

The trail in its self was really fun and kids enjoyed the map reading and exploring the forest however there's not much else there to do. They could do with investing some money into a big play area for the children. There's so much room in the picnic area that it would make an ideal place for a wooden climbing area. Just a thought!

What a brilliant place!!! We loved it, nice and clean and tidy, with very friendly entertaining staff and with lots to do and it's all FREE even free cake! Had a man blowing giant bubbles which the kids love! Just the best afternoon out!

Even has a cute little cafe! Only tiny downside is that the gruffalo souvenirs are super expensive

We took my grandsons (aged 5 and 3) and they had great fun finding the animals and having photos taken at each one. Little bit of exploring too. Just long enough for little legs! A great way to get them out in the fresh air!

We had a fab day following the gruffalo trail and doing the Easter egg hunt. My 4 year old loved it and so did my two dogs. We had lunch before we set off which a little on the expensive side for average food. The kids lunch bag at near £5 for one slice of bread made in to a cheese sandwich, a drink, some raisins, a baby bel and a frube was very steep. Next time would take a picnic.

Was a lovely,fun great day.. only problem I found was that if I had not used the toilet I wouldn't have know where the gruffalo trail starts. Otherwise, I had downloaded the app and the photos with the stars of the books made my daughter very happy.

Visited for the first time today with my little girl and husband. We loved it, had a great time first following the Gruffalo trail to find, the mouse, fox, owl, snake, gruffalo's child and The gruffalo, our little girl loved finding them. We then went off for a 'nature walk' into the rest of the woods and had fun climbing trees, crunching in leaves and listening to birds. We will be back again and maybe hire bikes from the bike hire cabin to go for a real adventure ��

Visited for the 1st time with my 1 boys, oldest 7 and youngest 2 and they both loved it, great value for money £4 for all day park. Will definitely be going back soon

Took my 3 year old grandson to see Santa. He loved the whole experience, talking to the elves, meeting Santa, riding on the train through the woods and seeing some of the Gruffalo characters, perfectly finished off with a cup of hot chocolate and a gingerbread man! Well done to all for creating such a magical adventure!

The older lady in the shop today was amazing with our daughter she has autism she gave our daughter the time she needed and let her talk at her own pace it was lovely a huge thank you xoxo

One of my favourite family places.

Parking is fine 90% of the time. Forest is beautiful and safe! Great in the Autumn and the summer. Purpose built toilets are a god-send and a lovely little cafe and shop.

My kids 5 and 11 loved it here! We spent a couple of hours exploring and my youngest was very excited by the gruffalo trail! We would have loved a play area of some kind at the end but my boys made up their own adventures in the trees! One of the nicest forests I've ever been to! Cafe was lovely and we spent on toys which were expensive! X

Lovely park. Both my boys had lots of fun. And was very pleasantly surprised to find a choice of dairy free ice cream available so my youngest didn’t have to miss out on treat!

Lovely day out with friends, even though my son is only 4 months it was still fun he was looking all around and out friends children really enjoyed looking for the characters and using the map. Definitely a new place to come out for the day

Husband and I went yesterday. We went with our two daughters and our two 2yr old grandsons, being our daughters boys. Our two grandsons know the gruffalo story and characters very well so were so excited when they spotted each one. They loved the freedom of running around the trees and into the woodland areas. The boys had great fun picking up sticks and also going into the stick caves they found. Paying for just the car parking was fantastic, we wish there were more places like this, such a great idea for kids. We spent 2 hours there but you could easily double that and more if you spent more time in woods and sand areas. People in the shop and cafe very polite and whole place very clean. Theres also many wild birds and squirrels around to see. Only one thing letting this place down and that was some of the general public letting their dogs off lead to run in and out of the woodland and some dogs were very big!! Not good when you have children running about and very selfish of them.

Been twice now with my four year old and he enjoyed it more now he's older. He was able to read the map and know which character was coming up. He looked at the trees and some of the foliage, even throwing dogs for our dog to fetch. All in all a fun time out for all the family!

When we went the weather court us out n it was colder then expected.but beautiful park the forest is peaceful place early in morning tranquil.

But I also went last Sunday and left feeling like I had a weight lifted off & More motivation And I even hugged a tree.

I’d recommend it to anyone

And I can’t wait to visit in summer I bet it looks beautiful full of colour

Lovely time difficult to find where you get map from.ask and found it was in cafe.my great grandson wanted a gruffalo toy.ask again with the rangers sitting at the cafe table and was told it was at the cafe which by this time lunchtime and quite a queue. So did not have time to purchase so upset grandson

Great cheap day out with the children. You do have to pay to park your car £1-£5 depending on how long you want to stay and the charge does apply to Blue Badge owners too. Buy the map for 50p but avoid buying anything else in the shop, it is very expensive, take a picnic and spend the day in the forest :)

Enjoy in the wood land.

The trail in its self was really fun and kids enjoyed the map reading and exploring the forest however there's not much else there to do. They could do with investing some money into a big play area for the children. There's so much room in the picnic area that it would make an ideal place for a wooden climbing area. Just a thought!