The South Oxford Adventure Playground will spend 2024 looking back at 50 wonderful years of operation and forward to 50 more years of adventurous play.
“Meet you at SOAP?”
Generations of kids in South Oxford have made this promise. To climb, to dig, to build, or simply to lie in the dappled shade, the South Oxford Adventure Playground has provided a free space for kids in this area and across the City for the last half a century.
Started by a group of parents in the Seventies, the playground has moved a number of times. But its ethos of adventurous, risk-taking play - always free at point of use - has never changed. Our current site combines a wooden fort, a tower, zip wire, rope swings and bridges, a football pitch, a small wood, a hut for rainy days and a hill to roll down! There are also plenty of quiet corners to build a den or watch the clouds float by. It’s a space where kids can escape screens, routines and the pressures of everyday life.
The playground is open after school and during the holidays between April and October, and for community groups and families to hire outside these times. It has a thriving youth club where young people can meet new friends and keep old ones outside school. Every year we are visited by thousands of young people from every walk of life across the city and beyond.
To mark 50 years, we are aiming to raise £50,000. This will be used to improve our hut by making it more secure, warmer and more suitable for a range of activities. It will also fund a community social history project enabling children to learn about SOAP’s past users. But most importantly, it will safeguard the playground’s future, ensuring this precious oasis is still here for many generations of kids to come.
Please help us reach our target. Every donation - whether big or small - makes a huge difference.
So, meet you at SOAP?
