Walks and Tours at Rufford

Rufford Abbey has an attractive mixture of grounds and gardens surrounding the Abbey ruins for you to explore and discover for yourselves.

These include:

• The Abbey Meadow, an informal grassland area where grass is left long in places for insects and butterflies
• The Formal Gardens, including several interesting items of modern sculpture
• The Reg Hookway Arboretum, running down to the Children's Play Village and featuring some unusual varities of birch
• The Abbey Lawn and The Sheep Meadow, largely consisting of mown grassland that is fairly flat, making it the perfect place for younger visitors to let off steam. Picnics are also welcome here and family picnic tables are provided close to the lake path
• The Lime Tree Avenue, a historic avenue of limes leading from the ornate Western Gates to the Abbey's west front
• The Play Village, a play zone for younger children, including a dragon gateway and sound sculpture
• The Abbot's Maze, consisting of wooden posts set into the ground in a wheel design. The maze is wide enough for most wheelchairs

The wildlife highlight of the park is undoubtedly the lake.

Created in 1750 as a source of water for a corn mill, the lake is now a haven for wildlife of all sorts, but particularly waterfowl. Their different feeding techniques are always interesting to watch, and there are also goof views on the eastern edge of the lake to watch the birds within the Silver Pool Nature Reserve.

There is a path of crushed limestone that circles the lake for those looking to explore on foot. Most of this circuit is flat, but there is one incline near "Scotland Bank" (indicated on the site access map), which may be a challenge to some wheelchair users.