Islington’s Three Corners Adventure Playground was crowned London Adventure Playground of the Year in a hail of bouncing eyeballs and sticky spider webs at a riotous celebration in Shoreditch on 31 October. Awards also went to adventure playgrounds in Hackney, Lambeth and Merton in the hotly anticipated annual event run by the charity London Play.
Entries to the London Adventure Play Awards are in the form of two-minute films made by children about the places they love to play. The group from Three Corners were among around 200 kids and supporters from 12 shortlisted groups to converge on Rich Mix cinema, thrilled at the chance to see their own films on the big screen and partake in plenty of popcorn, pandemonium and prizes!
The soundtrack to the Three Corners film was appropriately Wookiefoot’s ‘Happy to Be Here’. It showed children building with tools, lighting fires, climbing, swinging, sliding and putting on performances on their makeshift playground stage. The importance of the skilled playworkers to children’s experience was clear. Jessie, 12 said: “The playworkers are really nice and funny. There are a lot of activities, and we can always make new friends.” Presented with their winners’ clapperboard by last year’s champions, Hackney’s Shakespeare Walk, the group jumped with excitement when told that the winning prize is a ride in their own private pod on the London Eye, generously donated by Marks Barfield Architects.
Awards were also made in four categories: Best Flick (for best film); Weird and Wonderful; Playworker Dream Team and Play Street of the Year. The Weird and Wonderful award was won by Hackney Marsh Adventure Playground whose joyful film showed children and playworkers facing off as sumo wrestlers, getting slimey and also enjoying the chance to ‘just chill’. Lambeth’s Lollard Street AP won ‘Best Flick’ with its film set to the whimsical Willy Wonka ‘Pure Imagination’ song and featuring surreal scenes with boats and bubbles. “It’s a place to have fun and be yourself,” said Frankie, 10. Acacia adventure playground in Merton took the ‘Dream Team’ award and Lewisham’s Reaston Road was Play Street of the Year.
The awards come at a time when staffed adventure playgrounds have been in the headlines as several come under threat of cuts or closures. London Play director Fiona Sutherland said:
“Congratulations to the children and staff at Three Corners, Hackney Marsh, Lollard Street and Acacia adventure playgrounds. Their films exude fun, freedom and the magic of childhood, and demonstrate the immense value that London’s staffed adventure playgrounds bring to children and families in some of the capital’s least affluent communities.
The role of the playworker cannot be overstated. They are not just experts in creating quality play environments – they are first aiders, social workers, health and safety experts, coaches, artists, counsellors and more. They deserve our respect and admiration – and proper pay.”
London is known as the adventure playground capital of the world; these unique child-led places were founded on bombsites in the aftermath of WWII. In the 1980s London had over 100 staffed adventure playgrounds; today only around 70 remain, with 12 having closed in the last decade alone.