About the park
Set in the beautiful countryside about half a mile south of Ruddington, Rushcliffe Country Park is an ideal place to get away from it all - Rushcliffe Country Park map. With a network of over 8 kilometres of footpaths, grassland, conservation and landscaped areas, the park is excellent for walking, jogging, cycling, spotting wildlife and exercising your dog.
Bring your family and a picnic and encourage your children to let off steam in the extensive play area, which has around 20 pieces of modern equipment for children up to the age of 12. The play area includes a swing suitable for less able children (safety equipment is available on request) and part of the equipment is accessible to wheelchair users. For older children there's a skateboard midi half pipe, and a 4X/ BMX cycle track situated nearby.
There is a medieval city – 8m tall, railway-themed play equipment with large sandpit area, plus the usual swings, slides and roundabouts.
Access to the park is free, though a £1 voluntary car parking charge is now in operation. For our regular visitors an annual pass is available for £20.
The park is open daily, 365 days a year, however the toilets and the car park don’t open on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New YearsDay.
The car park opens every morning at 8am and will be locked at closing time:
4pm from November – March
6pm from April - October.
However, the park is still accessible outside of these times via the pedestrian access points.
Access to Rushcliffe Country Park
Disabled access
The park is accessible to wheelchair users via the car park entrance or from Barleylands in Ruddington. The paths around the lake are flat, with minor slopes around the rest of the Country Park. There are toilets with disabled access.
The Country Park is set within 85 hectares of wildflower meadows, grassland, conservation and landscaped areas. One third of the country park has been planted with over 80% of native broad leaf trees, such as oaks, alders, field maple, birch and wild cherry.
The 2 hectare lake and reed bed provides an invaluable habitat for a diversity of aquatic species and an excellent site for watching wildfowl such as the resident mute swans, great crested grebes and various duck species. Other birds regularly seen in the park include skylarks, meadow pipits, finches, cuckoos, kestrels, sparrow hawks, reed buntings, reed warblers and sedge warblers to name but a few. The best time to see mammals is either at dawn or at dusk. There are plenty of foxes, stoats, rabbits, hares, voles, hedgehogs, mice and shrews and various species of bats.