Guildenacre at Helmingham Hall

Helmingham Hall has been home to the Tollemache family since 1480. A moated 16th century manor house at the centre of a 400-acre deer park, it's one of Suffolk's most-loved visitor destinations, drawing people in year-round for its Grade I listed gardens, walled kitchen garden, Rose, Herb and Knot gardens, and the herds of red and fallow deer that have grazed the grounds for centuries.

When custodian Edward Tollemache and the Helmingham team began exploring a new woodland adventure playground to extend the visitor offer, they came to CAP.CO to design and build it. The result, Guildenacre, opened to the public in the summer of 2026: a four-acre immersive play experience woven into existing woodland, built around an original story and populated with magically themed guardian creatures, drawn straight from the estate's resident wildlife.

Concepts

An early site visit revealed three separate landscape elements sitting in isolation from one another: a cluster of atmospheric old barns, an existing pond, and mature woodland already home to resident badger setts. Our first job was to find a way to connect them into a single, looping journey that visitors could explore at their own pace.

That thinking led to the wider narrative. Rather than invent a fantasy setting from nothing, we drew on Helmingham's own ecological survey, badgers, red and fallow deer, owls, and foxes among them, and enabled the Helmingham team to build a layer of immersive story around four guardian animals who protect the woodland with the help of a magical Whispering Oak Tree. Atlas the Stag, Eira the Owl, Flint the Badger and Vex the Vixen each became the anchor for one of four themed play zones, giving every part of the site its own character, while keeping the whole experience tied together within the same narrative. As a nod to the Tollemache family's coat of arms, a golden Pegasus was woven into the design too, a small detail 'easter egg' that we love and only seen by the super sharp-eyed visitor.

Bringing the story to life

Each guardian's habitat shaped the play structure built for them. Flint's Hollow takes its cues directly from a real badger sett, with raised, interlinked play 'chambers', a Home Chamber, Larder Chamber, Lookout Chamber and Escape Chamber, reached by crawl tunnels and left via a long tube slide.

Eira the Owl's Canopy Keep climbs up into the tree canopy via a timber walkway and rope ladder to a stargazing deck, with talking tubes connecting young explorers below.

The Elderglade, home to Atlas the Stag, is the largest of the four zones, built for older children with climbing walls, tunnels, multi-level walkways and a run of racing slides.

The Ember Den, watched over by Vex the Vixen, brings the pace up further again with a full-height zip line, a second zip line for younger visitors, and ground-level play trails and balance beams.

Visitors cross into the wood over a drawbridge framed by two landmark oaks, passing beneath a bespoke entrance archway carved with the words "Where a glimmer of gold, hints at tales untold", a new Guildenacre coat of arms and surrounded by wonky robinia timber posts It's a deliberately theatrical threshold into the story to propose to the guest that magic lies within and to activate their imagination.

Along the way, stamp stations and a trail sheet give the play a quietly educational thread too, encouraging children to look closely at and learn respect for the real woodland species that inspired each guardian.

Planning the build

Connecting the site meant treating the barns, pond and woodland as three distinct chapters of one visitor journey. Wades Barn, a Grade II listed building, was sensitively restored as the entrance and welcome courtyard, housing a café, shop, toilets and a small toddler play space, so that families arrive through a warm, characterful threshold before setting off into the landscape beyond. From there, a landscaped route of wildflower meadows leads visitors around the existing pond and into the wood itself.

Within the woodland, a central hub combining the ticket office, food and drink and toilet facilities was built from converted shipping containers, clad and roofed to match the timber finish of the rest of the play structures, so it sits comfortably in its surroundings rather than announcing itself as new. Construction throughout was carefully managed to protect the site's ancient trees and existing badger setts, and estate materials were reused wherever possible to keep the build rooted in its place. Bark pathways connecting all four play zones were designed to be accessible to pushchairs and wheelchairs, so the whole site is open to every visitor.

Opening

Guildenacre opened to the public at the start of summer 2026, giving Helmingham Hall a major new family destination to sit alongside its Grade I listed gardens, 400-acre deer park, shops and seasonal events calendar.

It's a project that really plays to our strengths. A brave client who gives us full access to their unspoilt landscape, their years of history and the stories of their wildlife, and allows us to create original play based on an original story, where visitors can climb, slide and explore their way throughout their woods and beyond.