Families can join Newark and Sherwood District Council’s rangers for outdoor activities on four afternoons later this month, with no booking required.
Children and their families are being invited to spend part of the October half term outdoors with Newark and Sherwood District Council’s park rangers, at free drop-in sessions in two of the district’s largest green spaces.
The sessions will run from 1pm to 3.30pm on four afternoons. At Vicar Water Country Park, near Clipstone, they take place on Tuesday 20 and Tuesday 27 October. At Sconce and Devon Park in Newark, they will be held on Thursday 22 and Thursday 29 October.
The council describes the sessions as hands-on outdoor activities led by its rangers but has not said what the activities will involve. There is no need to book, and all children must be accompanied by an adult. At both parks, visitors are asked to follow signs from the Rumbles Café, where the rangers’ offices are based.
The cafés at both parks are run by Rumbles Catering Project, a charity that provides catering and life-skills training for people with learning difficulties.
The two sites offer quite different settings. Vicar Water covers around 80 hectares just south of Clipstone and was largely formed on former colliery spoil tips, which have been transformed into heathland, woodland and grassland in the shadow of the Clipstone Colliery headstocks. At its centre is Vicar Pond, a fishing lake created by the fifth Duke of Portland in the 1870s. The park has held a Green Flag Award every year since 2000.
Sconce and Devon Park is Newark’s largest open space, with riverside, pasture, woodland, grassland and orchard habitats. It includes Devon Pastures Local Nature Reserve and the Queen’s Sconce, an earthwork fortification from the Civil War. It is also a Green Flag Award winner.
The rangers already run a programme of guided walks at both parks, held on the first Tuesday of each month at Sconce and Devon and the third Tuesday at Vicar Water. Unlike the half-term sessions, places on those walks must be booked through the council’s website.
Further details on events at both parks are published on their Facebook pages and the council’s website.
