Mud Kitchen Corner Style 7 is a durable and engaging outdoor play unit designed specifically for early years and nursery settings. Created to support creative, sensory, and imaginative play, this thoughtfully designed mud kitchen encourages children to explore, experiment, and learn through hands-on outdoor experiences.

Featuring a themed kitchen design, this Mud Kitchen includes realistic play elements such as an oven, hob, and washing machine, helping to inspire role play and real-world understanding. The unit is fitted with four stainless steel bowls, providing multiple opportunities for mixing, pouring, and exploring different textures and materials. These bowls are hard-wearing, easy to clean, and perfectly suited for busy early years environments.

Manufactured from high-quality laminated timber, this mud kitchen is built to withstand regular outdoor use while maintaining its strength and appearance over time. The robust construction ensures long-lasting performance, and the product is supplied with a lengthy guarantee, offering reassurance and excellent value for nurseries, schools, and early years providers.

Mud Kitchen Corner Style 7 is ideal for group play and collaborative activities, helping children develop communication and language skills as they play together, share ideas, and engage in imaginative storytelling. It provides a versatile play experience, allowing practitioners to tailor activities to learning outcomes and children’s interests.

While traditionally associated with mud, this unit is suitable for use with a wide range of loose materials, including bark, gravel, sand, stones, and natural resources. This flexibility supports sensory exploration and creative learning throughout the year, whatever the setting or season.

Proudly manufactured in the UK by ESP PLAY, Mud Kitchen Corner Style 7 reflects high standards of quality, safety, and craftsmanship. It is the perfect addition to early years and nursery play areas, helping to spark imagination and support learning through play in an inclusive and engaging outdoor environment.

Little Woodpecker Play Tower

The Little Woodpecker Play Tower is a compact twin-tower timber structure designed specifically for children aged 3 to 7. Every element  deck height, step rise, handrail position, slide gradient  is scaled to the size and stage of early years and infant children, giving them a structure they can master rather than one they have to be lifted onto.

Two towers, one shared play space

Two pitched-roof towers sit side by side, linked by a connecting deck to create a small, contained world at height. The scale is deliberately modest: young children benefit from being able to see the whole structure at once, understand where the routes go, and stay within sight of supervising adults. It’s a design that builds confidence rather than testing it.

Age-appropriate access and descent

A gentle stepped ramp and stair access with handrails give young children secure, manageable ways up, supporting the development of coordination, balance and sequencing. A short, wide slide provides a rewarding descent at a gradient suited to little ones thrilling enough to be worth repeating, gentle enough to be approached without hesitation.

Play value for early years

Activity panels at deck level invite manipulation, counting, matching and mark-making, extending play beyond the purely physical. The roofed towers create sheltered spaces for role play, den-making and quiet retreat, vital for young children who need somewhere to regulate as well as somewhere to climb. And because two children can occupy the towers comfortably, the structure naturally supports the parallel and early cooperative play typical of this age group.

UK manufactured from laminated timber

Built from laminated timber and manufactured in the UK, the Little Woodpecker resists the warping and splitting common to solid timber, keeping maintenance low and service life long. Every unit is manufactured in full compliance with applicable playground safety standards.

Built to last, built here

Every Squirrel Play Tower is designed, manufactured and installed in the UK by ESP Play.

Glulam redwood posts. We build with laminated timber rather than solid sawn posts. Layers of graded redwood are bonded under pressure to create posts that are markedly stronger and far more resistant to splitting than sawn timber, with a smooth, clean finish that’s kinder to small hands and weathers well over years of outdoor use.

FSC sustainable timber, treated properly. Our sawn redwood comes from FSC-certified sustainable sources and is pressure-treated to Use Class 4 — the classification for timber in permanent ground contact , after all cutting, drilling and machining is complete, so no untreated surfaces are left exposed.

Corrosion-resistant fixings. Every nut, bolt, screw and bracket is zinc-plated or stainless steel, chosen for longevity and safety rather than cost.

Vandal-resistant ropes. Where ropes are used, they’re steel-cored polypropylene: bright, hard-wearing and highly resistant to cutting.

Installed by our own teams and guaranteed. Our specialist installation teams handle the work from groundworks to sign-off, and the tower is backed by a substantial guarantee.

Play Tower FAQs

What makes a play tower “commercial grade”?

Equipment for a school, nursery or public park is engineered for a completely different duty cycle to garden equipment. A commercial tower is sized for many children using it simultaneously, all day, every day, for years, and it’s designed, tested and certified against recognised playground standards. Domestic equipment is built to a lighter specification and won’t survive that treatment, which is why it isn’t appropriate for public or educational settings regardless of price.

What standards should outdoor play equipment meet?

In the UK and Europe, playground equipment is governed by BS EN 1176 (equipment and surfacing) and BS EN 1177 (impact-absorbing surfacing). These cover structural integrity, entrapment risks, fall heights, guardrails and more. Ask any supplier for confirmation before you commit, we’re happy to provide ours.

Why does laminated timber matter?

Solid sawn posts move as they dry. They twist, they check, they split along the grain and in a playground those splits become splinter risks and moisture traps. Laminating reverses the stresses in the wood by bonding graded layers together, so the post stays straight and stable. It costs more to manufacture, but it’s the difference between a frame that still looks right in year ten and one that doesn’t.

How much space do we need?

Beyond the tower’s own footprint, you need a clear safety zone free of walls, fences, trees and other equipment. As a rule of thumb this extends at least 1.5m in every direction, with a larger run-out area at the foot of any slide. We survey the site before quoting and confirm the exact area, it’s often less than people fear, and occasionally more.

Can a play tower go on a sloping or awkward site?

Usually, yes. Slopes, drainage runs, tree roots and odd-shaped corners are normal conditions rather than dealbreakers. Because we design and manufacture in-house, we can adjust post lengths, deck arrangements and access points to suit the ground you actually have. A site visit will tell us what’s needed.

What surfacing goes underneath?

Any equipment with a free height of fall above 600mm needs impact-attenuating surfacing throughout its fall zone. The main options are wetpour rubber, rubber mulch, grass matting laid over turf, and loose-fill materials such as bark or wood chip. They differ significantly on cost, drainage, appearance and ongoing maintenance, loose fill is cheapest to install but needs topping up and raking; wet pour costs more upfront and needs almost nothing. We’ll advise based on your site, budget and expected footfall.

What maintenance will we be responsible for?

Three tiers of inspection are recommended. Routine visual checks, carried out frequently, catch obvious hazards like damage, wear or litter. Operational inspections every one to three months look more closely at stability, wear and moving parts. An annual main inspection by a competent person assesses overall structural integrity, paying particular attention to timber at ground level where moisture damage starts. We can carry out inspections for you if you’d rather not manage it in-house.

How long does installation take?

It depends on the scale of the unit and the groundworks and surfacing involved. A single tower on existing surfacing is quick, a full play area with new wet pour takes longer. We’ll give you a firm programme with the quote, and we routinely work around term dates and holiday periods to keep disruption down.

How do schools usually fund play equipment?

Common routes include devolved capital budgets, PE and Sport Premium funding where the scheme supports physical activity outcomes, PTA and community fundraising, grant funding from local trusts and foundations, and, for developments near new housing — Section 106 or CIL contributions held by the local authority. Many projects combine two or three of these. We can help you phase a scheme so it fits the funding you have now with room to extend later.

How do we choose between different tower sizes?

Start with the children rather than the catalogue. Their age and physical confidence set the appropriate platform heights and challenge level; your numbers set the capacity you need; your space sets the outer limit. Bigger isn’t automatically better — an over-ambitious tower that younger children can’t access independently gets less use than a well-matched one. Tell us about your setting and we’ll recommend honestly.

How do we get started?

Get in touch with your site details, the age groups you’re catering for and any budget or timescale you’re working to. We’ll arrange a visit and put together a proposal — for the Squirrel Play Tower alone, or as part of a wider play area design.