Callendar Park's Roman Play Park and Milk Barn Ice Cream
A few hours.
The route
Callendar Park, on the east side of Falkirk, has a play park built like a Roman fort, and beside it a natural play trail of balance beams, stepping logs and a zig-zag bridge winds through the trees.
Then it's a short drive across town to the Milk Barn at Glen Farm, where the ice cream is made with milk from the cows in the fields outside.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The day
Falkirk
It's a morning of climbing, balancing and running about, then ice cream. The play park and the trail in the trees come first, and the Milk Barn after, 9 minutes' drive away on the southern edge of town, for a cone and a sandwich if it's nearly lunchtime.
About two and a half hours
Callendar Park
Park free in the Callendar Park car park, reached along Seaton Place off Estate Avenue, past the high flats. There's more parking on Estate Avenue, and disabled parking in front of Callendar House. The play park is built like a Roman fort, in a park with a stretch of the Antonine Wall, and it sits next to the kiosk and the toilets. It has equipment for different ages, plenty of it accessible, and it's free. It opens at 8.30am and shuts at 5pm in winter and 7.30pm in summer, and the toilets are open every day from 9am to 4pm. When they've had their fill, the Natural Play Trail starts close by, a half-hour loop through the trees. On it are balance beams, stepping logs, stilts, a climbing stack, a flying fox and a zig-zag bridge, and little woodland doors are hidden along the way. Follow the snail signs round. It's made of logs and earth, so the ground can be uneven or muddy, and everything is slippy when wet. Allow an hour and a half for both.
9 min by car
The Milk Barn
Ice cream
It's 9 minutes' drive through Falkirk and south down Glen Brae to Glen Village. Just south of the village a farm road leaves the B8028 and runs about half a kilometre to Glen Farm, where the Milk Barn has a free car park. It's open every day from 10am to 5pm, closed only on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The ice cream is made here with milk from the farm's own herd, milked yards away, and you can watch it being made through a viewing window. New flavours come and go, from Scottish tablet to sticky toffee pudding, and the milkshakes are made with it too. Near lunchtime, the café does coffee, sandwiches, baguettes and paninis, with home-made cakes and scones. Children can try milking Glenda, the farm's fibreglass cow. Dogs stay outside, where there are water bowls and an ice cream made for them. The entrance, seating and toilet are step-free. On the way out, the vending machine sells the farm's fresh milk at any hour.
If it rains
Both are mostly out of doors. On a wet morning, keep the play park short and skip the trail, which gets muddy and slippy. Callendar House, a short walk from the play park, is free to go in and open from 10am every day except Tuesday, though its Georgian Kitchen and the Story of Callendar House exhibition are shut from 26 October to 4 November 2026. The Milk Barn's café is indoors.
Photograph by Amy F. via Google