Markyate · family
Cell Park, village play, and the Chilterns within a short drive.
Markyate is quiet in the way families sometimes mean when they say they want quiet.
There is no Snow Centre here. There is also no Magic Roundabout.
A day that survives rain, a budget, and a child who is finished 40 minutes early.
Markyate is small enough that an honest “best family days out” list should admit gaps. These are the nearest Dacorum options we would actually send you to.
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01
St Albans Hill, Hemel Hempstead · Hemel Hempstead
Hemel’s wildest piece of leisure infrastructure: a real-snow indoor slope a few minutes from the Magic Roundabout. It is a national-catchment attraction that happens to sit in a Dacorum neighbourhood. Book lessons well ahead; weekend public sessions fill.
02
Box Lane, Hemel Hempstead · Hemel Hempstead
Little Hay is Hemel’s public golf landscape, now passing to Absolutely Together with plans for adventure golf, padel and range tech. It remains a pay-and-play course first. Keep an eye on planning if you care about the setting.
03
Leighton Buzzard Road, Hemel Hempstead · Hemel Hempstead
Gadebridge is where the town holds Armed Forces Day, learns to ride a bike, and walks the dog into the water. Green Flag judged, civic by default, and the best free hour you can spend with children in central Hemel.
04
White Hill, Berkhamsted · Berkhamsted
William’s half-brother, Thomas Becket, a motte you can still scramble. Berkhamsted Castle is English Heritage, free to enter, and the first thing children should see when they get off the train. Combine with the canal and a High Street bun.
05
Monument Drive, near Aldbury · Berkhamsted
The essential Dacorum landscape. Start at the monument or at Aldbury, pick a colour of mud, and accept that summer Saturdays are communal. Bluebells in spring are famous for a reason; so are the car parks that fill by 10am.
06
Akeman Street, Tring · Tring
The most surprising museum in Hertfordshire sits on Akeman Street. Cases of animals collected by a Victorian who kept zebras. Children go quiet. Adults remember that Tring was a Rothschild town. Check current ticketing; it has not always been a walk-up.
More from the directory: Markyate Fish Bar & Kebab HouseMarkyate Grill at Fusion FoodsMarkyate Cricket & Football Club
Planning
Supplementary Planning Documents for the HGC area are now adopted. They will guide neighbourhoods, infrastructure and the long argument about how Hemel grows north.
25 June 2026