As play and learn consultants, our role at Seaton Delaval Hall was to champion the family visitor experience, whilst carefully balancing the impact on other user groups, conservation and historical aspects of the site. The play provision holds a vital role at Seaton, re-igniting the ‘spirit of place’ and offering an experience and insight into the Delaval family and their dramatic lifestyle.
The play is designed to be of high quality and durable, offering an educational, challenging yet safe experience for children. Designed to foster families’ curiosity and excitement about their surroundings and help children experience the lives of their historic counter parts. The challenge was to provide a play area that is sensitive and pays homage to the history, stories and aesthetic of its inhabitants, architecture and gardens, whilst offering a unique and exciting play area.
Inspired by the Delaval’s love of spectacle and theatre, the woodland play area is designed around the theme of Baroque theatre, both in its architecture, scenery and exploration of false perspective, as well as backstage, the frames, capstans, rigging, ladders and mechanisms. We envisage a Delaval spectacular referencing their taste for theatre and staging dramatic events, imagining how they might have arranged a magical theatre in the woodlands, full of surprises and dramatic tricks.
