Explore the Monkey Forest in Staffordshire (yes, Staffordshire)
Monkey Forest is based at the Trentham Estate in Staffordshire. These monkeys, Barbary macaques, are free-roaming and not in cages, so this is a unique experience in the UK.
Our Review
The Monkey Forest
The Trentham Estate in Staffordshire has converted some of its grounds over to a Monkey Forest. What is the Monkey Forest? Well, imagine walking through woodland park grounds, as typically found across the UK, but this time with free-roaming monkeys!
They have a couple of troops of Barbary macaques, complete with babies.
These are free to roam 60 acres of woodland through which a 3/4 mile trail runs.
When we visited there was plenty of helpful staff, giving frequent talks and regular feeding times.
As well as the monkeys, there's a play park, cafe, and picnic area.
Getting up into the trees
So, if watching the monkeys had your kids wanting to climb the trees, right next to the Monkey Forest is an Aerial Extreme high-ropes adventure course... but they will need to be over 1.4m.
Keeping your feet firmly on the ground
Right next to the Monkey Forest and Aerial Extreme is a public footpath through woods. If you carry on walking past the Aerial Extreme next to the Monkey Forest fence, you'll see an entrance to the woods in the top left corner before the fields start.
You can follow the trail all the way back towards the road where you came into the park, so a great walk to get in before going home.
The trail starts flat and then descends. In fact, one fork of the trail will bring you out by a statue where you have great views from the top of the hill you are on. (We surprised a black deer that was by the statue, so keep your eyes peeled for wildlife).
If you're into Geocaching then this trail has a number of great caches. We found a few travel bugs when we visited, which the kids were thrilled at (despite our youngest loosing his swappable on the path, which lost us about 45 minutes in unsuccessful searching and retracing our steps).
Update 7/5/2020
With the Covid-19 lockdown mostly lifted in England, we returned to the Monkey Forest in Staffordshire.
The Banana Cafe at the Monkey Forest.
Once again, this was a great day out, and we were treated to a fresh set of baby monkies :-)
Hitching a lift
This cheeky little monkey loves exploring.
Facilities
Facilities Details
The car park is free.Accessibility Info
Click this link to view their Accessibility DetailsOn The Map
Address
Explore the Monkey Forest in Staffordshire (yes, Staffordshire)Monkey Forest, Trentham Estate
Tittensor
Staffordshire
ST12 9HR
England
Longitude: -2.198349
Latitude: 52.950046