This year, iconic children’s playground designer & manufacturer, Wicksteed Playgrounds, will be celebrating reaching the incredible milestone of 100 years of providing fun and entertainment for generations of children past, present and future.

Its founder, Charles Wicksteed died in 1931 but his firm is going strong, and in 2018 will be celebrating its centenary of furnishing a nation with play opportunities. Wicksteed remains one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of children’s outdoor play and sports equipment, exporting far and wide, and still pushing the latest technologies to create play equipment that entices a new generation of children into the outdoors.

In 1876 Charles Wicksteed (1847-1931) founded an engineering company in Kettering, Charles Wicksteed and Company, which prospered such that Wicksteed became a wealthy businessman. In 1913 he bought a parcel of agricultural land south-east of Kettering and formed the Village Trust. His intention was to provide a model village for the working classes at below-average rents, offering generous gardens and a large open public space for recreation and play.

Charles realised the importance of play in children’s lives and by 1918, his firm was making vast quantities of playground equipment not just for his park, but also to sell commercially, manufacturing and installing play equipment to public parks and schools across the UK and around the world.  Over decades they made a dazzling array of equipment, from pioneering metal slides, the plank swing or ‘jazz’ (a cross between a swing and a see-saw), to the Ocean Wave (a ring-shaped platform on which a group of children sat or stood to revolve around a central pole) and the Wicksteed Rocking Horse on which from the 1930s onwards children were able to ride.

As well as static play equipment, Wicksteed offers bespoke play design, electronic play, sports apparatus and a comprehensive range of outdoor gym equipment which can be found in hundreds of community spaces across the country.

Reaching this landmark is an exciting time, to reflect on its incredible heritage but also to look forward to what will continue to be offered in the world of outdoor play, sport and fitness for the next century.

For further information visit www.wicksteed.co.uk