Dorridge Park – A Review

In our third review of local dog walking locations this article looks at Dorridge Park located in Dorridge, Solihull.

Dorridge Park started off as Dorridge Wood after a donation of land was made to Solihull Council in 1969. The area used to be both farmland and woodland home to a variety of species including Scotts Pine, Ash and Elm trees. The park and woodland area today are still home to many animals and through my own experience I can confirm that even during the day if you’re lucky you may spot some deer that roam this area.

DORRIDGE PARK – LOCATION & PARKING

Dorridge Park is located a short walk from Dorridge train station and the main high street. There is one main car park with free parking and always plenty of spaces available. Be careful when navigating down the one lane road to the car park, there are three speed bumps that are poorly marked out and in the winter’s sun it can make spotting them rather difficult!

Alternatively, if you don’t wish to use the car park, the turn before on the left will take you down Arden Drive where there is plenty of quiet road parking providing quick access to the wood and the back end of the park.

DORRIDGE PARK – WHAT TO EXPECT

Dorridge park is made up of a reasonable large main playing field, a small woodland area and a couple of open wild flower fields. The park is flanked along the backside by canal feeder streams, these streams of course proving a very popular spot for all the local doggies!

There is also a beautiful pathed section that is lined with several rows of huge trees providing a nice mud free route to walk along and plenty of shade cover for those sunny summer days. If you turn left off of this path, you’ll find yourself entering the original Dorridge Wood itself, with several paths to explore whilst quite a small wood it is certainly full of character and routes to explore. Perfect for a change of scenery for those dog walks.

For dog walkers in Solihull this park is a well-kept park full of amenities and varied scenery. Do bare in mind that whilst a lovely park it is not the biggest park, if you are looking to do an hour’s dog walk then you’ll likely find yourself doing two complete loops of the park in order to fill that time, still it is plenty big enough for daily walks with plenty of variety to keep those dogs happy.

The main park area is your typical grassy park. Large open parkland with various trees dotted around. The park never gets too busy but always seems to maintain a nice level of ‘busyness’ where your four-legged friends can still often enough bump into other dogs to say hello to.

Facilities

Dorridge Park has plenty of facilities that you would expect in a park such as:

– Free Car Parking

– Canal Feeder Rivers

– Small Woodlands

– Tree lined Paths

– Children’s Play Area

Summary

This is a very pleasant park to visit, the other park users here all seems extremely friendly and the park is located in a very affluent area, the car parking is easy and safe and whilst the park is not the biggest in the area, it’s certainly one of the most well maintained and scenic. A park worthy of dog walking in Solihull.