Sherwood Forest among most popular visitor attractions in country

The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions has released the visitor figures of its members for 2021 – with Sherwood Pines ranking 16th in the country, the seventh most popular outside of London and second only to Chester Zoo for attractions north of the M25.

The figures suggest 705,007 visits to the Forestry Commission site, near Edwinstowe, in 2021.

Jason Maclean, Sherwood Pines recreation manager. said: “We’re delighted to have welcomed so many visitors.

“It’s great to see it maintaining it’s popularity with regular visitors but also welcoming lots of new faces.

“From technical mountain biking to trails to more gentle family rides, it’s a popular destination for cyclists from a wide area, while new developments such as the Superworm trail and our Ranger’s Path have been really well received.

“We’ve also got a new disc golf course which has proved a massive hit.”

Other attractions at the site include regular live music with Forest Live events, Go Ape! treetops adventure course, a trampoline adventure playground, as well as Segway tours and a café.

Demand

ALVA said its figures showed a strong demand for outdoor attractions whether gardens; parks; forests or zoos, but numbers are still hugely down on before the coronavirus pandemic.

The total number of visits to ALVA sites in 2021 was 67.8 million, which was a 25 per cent increase on the previous year, but an annual decline of 57 per cent on the 156.6m visits in 2019 to the top 306 ALVA sites.

Bernard Donoghue, ALVA director, said: “These figures, in a unique year, show tourism was hit first and hit hardest by the consequences of Covid.

“There is a huge spectrum of those attractions, mostly outdoors, which are recovering well, but still many, mostly those which are usually heavily dependent on overseas visitors, are still just surviving.

“Overseas visitors to the UK are not likely to be back to pre-pandemic levels until 2024/2025, so for many of our most iconic attractions this means not getting back to financial resilience for four or five years after having first closed their doors."

Other sites on the list include Chatsworth in 30th, with 540,927 visits last year, and Clumber Park, in 38th with 448,588 visits,

The top 10

1, Windsor Great Park, Berkshire – 5,400,000 visitors

2. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London – 1,963,171;

3. Chester Zoo – 1,601,327;

4. Natural History Museum, London – 1,571,413;

5. RHS Garden Wisley, Woking, Surrey – 1,410,785;

6. British Museum, London – 1,327,120;

7. Tate Modern – 1,156,037;

8. Somerset House, London – 984,978;

9. Science Museum, London – 955,873;

10. Jeskyns Community Woodland, Kent – 878,626

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