Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail

Very enjoyable. Easy access with well marked paths. Pick up a leaflet before you start. In it you will find a link to the Sculpture Trail website where there are more detailed descriptions to each piece.

If you’re looking for a place where your kids can run wild without breaking your furniture, the Forest of Dean is perfect. The trails are awesome, long enough to tire them out, but friendly enough that even little legs can conquer them. Picnic spots are scattered about, so you can unleash your snacks like a woodland feast, and yes, there’s actually good parking (a mythical British rarity). It’s beautiful, peaceful, and kid-friendly, which means adults can actually enjoy themselves too instead of just surviving the outing. Think of it as nature’s playground with just enough civilization to keep the parents sane. Highly recommend, you’ll leave with muddy shoes, tired children, and a weird urge to become a tree hugger.

A nice easy walking route throughout the forest following the purple Sculpture trail arrors. The stained glass window at the end was beautiful. Paths are lovely and wide and well maintained. Might be difficult with a pushchair as it does slope here and there but an easy walking route without. Also offers a child friendly Stick Man route to follow if walking with young ones.

It's a lovely spot, I didn't go so much as for the sculptures but rather a dog walk somewhere new. Parking plentiful, good value, I saw maybe 3-4 sculptures, quirky and odd, it is what it is. My biggest irk is that I had my head in my phone checking the bloody map to see where I was and if I was on the right track - there's plenty of short cuts and it's easy to get a bit disoriented half way round as there's plenty of other trails going off hither and tither. Bring water, and snacks as it's a fair old romp and be advised there's no poo bins on the trail so you'll be stuck with them.

Lovely trail. We have done this a couple of times. This time we were pushing a buggy around. Dog friendly, buggy friendly. There are some mediocre sculptures, but some fantastic ones as well. We were quite quick walking around and we did it in 3 hours. If you were taking your time, I would think it would take 4-5 hours to do the loop

Spent 4 days in Forest of Dean and the wider area, also visiting Chepstow Castle, Symond Yat Viewpoint, Eagle Nest Viewpoint, Puzzlewood and various nature trails. Parked at Speech House Wood car park for free (opposite the Arboretum). From the car park there are numerous signs pointing to the 'sculpture trail'. We were on the trail, but didn't know it (we thought the signs were pointing to where it started - there is seemingly no start point). We'd reach a trail junction and a sign would point in one direction, but we'd then be met with subsequent identical signs a few minutes later at the next junction pointing the way we'd just come. Or two signs - one pointing one way, another telling us to go somewhere else. In over 2 hrs, we'd walked several miles and only spotted a couple of (dull) sculptures. One was a pile of soil on top of a concrete box surrounded by industrial security fencing! Next to it was even a random sign suggesting walkers should do a 180° at that point(?) Extremely hard finding our way back to the car park. I used Google maps just to get a read on the right direction to head, but in the end, had to go off trail and ramble through the woods to get back. There wasn't a clear trail from the point we decided we'd had enough to get back to where we started from. Dozens of better, simpler paths and trails to walk in the forest without wasting hours here second guessing where a path might lead.

We had nearly a whole day here doing the Sculpture Walk, Stick man walk with the 4 year old granddaughters and some of the family did Go Ape. £8-50 car park all day, which isn't bad but when coupled with the £100 for Go Ape you think there would be a concession. The Sculpture walk is fairly steady with a couple of little climbs and loose stones underfoot, so decent footwear is recommended. There are some interesting pieces on show but lacking any information other than a title. The trail is 4.5 miles round if you do it all, there are a couple of shorter routes if you don't feel like doing the whole way. Cafe clean and offering the usual food and drinks, at those wonderful prices 😲😲

I recently visited with my dog and family as part of a week long stay in the Forest of Dean. A good 2 hour walk, meandering through the forest looking at a variety of different sculptures. I would recommend that you download the map and audio descriptions to give the stories behind each sculpture. Art is subjective and sculpture, even more so. Some of the works are great, and others are quite abstract. But the combination of walks and works of art is quite an interesting concept. Look to the trees too as there are some bonus pieces which are quite original. Plenty of pay for parking, a visitor centre where a paper map can be picked up, toilet facilities, and drinks, and ice cream can be purchased on site. Now... the negative, and the reason why I have given 4*. As a dog owner, walker, and visitor to the area, I was somewhat dismayed by the lack of respect and responsibility from fellow dog owners. On the trail, apart from some rubbish from snacks consumed, there were at least 30 dog bags discarded along the route. It beggars belief as to why these people went to the bother of cleaning up after their pet and then thought,'I'll just leave it for the poo-bag fairy to pick up.' Either there needs to be appropriate bins installed around the walking route, and/or there needs to be repeat signage telling people to be respectful and responsible and keep the bags and their rubbish with them until they come across a bin in which to deposit it. The forest is there for all to enjoy. Be respectful, be responsible, leave only footprints, and take only memories.