Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Have been here a few times and today, Sunday is different as the poppies sculpture are here which has certainly attracted more visitors. Car parks, cafes and everywhere is busy which is great for the park but not for quiet contemplation in memory of the soldiers. Coming on a dry /​slightly sunny weekend is a bad idea for this.
Went to the café afterwards for a cuppa tea but the queue was huge so went for the much smaller queue of the ice cream van. 2 scoop tub, 1 waffle ice cream and 2 cans cost £10.20. I worked it out again and he’d overcharged us by 45p. The cans were £1.85 each!!!
Car park is another extortionate story, £2.50 for an hour, 2 – 3 hours £5 or £8 for day.
Expensive family day although there are places to eat if you bring your own picnic

Great place to wander around and take in some great views. There’s plenty of things to see that keep the kids entertained too!

This is one of my very favourite places to visit. Beautiful and peaceful and always something new to see.

Now this is just amazing: a sprawling country park with grand houses, cute cafes, lakes, woods, great big lawns, winding pathways, sheep, geese, picnic tables and more. It’s easily accessible from the M1 and is free to enter (although donations are welcome and parking is a pretty hefty £8 a day).
However, what sets YSP apart from all the other country parks with all these features are the artworks dotted around from British and international artists such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. And what I love is how taking a few steps further along a path reveals more and more of these wonderful sculptures. Some are fenced off with a piece of string but others are not and you are free to climb all over them and interact). Whether it be huge human forms, abstract shapes or trees with toilets and sinks instead of leaves, you are bound to find some art to get you thinking or bring out your childhood desire to clamber all over.
Sculptures sit in the middle of fields with animals grazing beside them, families picnic or play frisbee with a backdrop of Breton Hall or children discover ruined houses amongst dark forests… this place is brilliant.
Although the park is free, you will need to get here somehow and there is a bus stop so if you don’t have wheels you may want to figure out where that bus comes from. Some of the pathways are a bit difficult to negotiate prams, buggies and wheelchairs so plan your route carefully to avoid crossing fields or clambering up banks. There is a decent network of suitable paths but if you have little ones they could get tired so bring a kiddie scooter or buggy board so they can rest for a bit.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a place that I’ve been meaning to visit for some time now, and today I finally ticked it off the list.
It took just over an hour to get there (driving from Manchester) and the weather was great. With our picnic packed away and Dora safely on her lead we set off around the park with a map in hand. (Available free from the car park!)
The grounds are largely used for sheep grazing so dogs must be kept on their leads at all times, there are also some parts where dogs cannot go at all so we did have to miss a bit of the experience, mainly where the cattle graze. Nontheless there was plenty for us to see, and if you feel like you want to add some culture into your walk this is the place to be!
Each artist is introduced with signs around the park and their individual sculptures are clearly labelled and explained to provide a full education of the work. Some are striking, others quite bizzare, but interesting all the same.
There are several different pathways to follow and so you can pick your own route around the park, and with a chapel and a couple of different galleries open to the public there is plenty of variety too. Some of the walkways take you through beautifully well kept gardens — an ideal place for your picnic, but if you didn’t pack your lunch don’t worry, there are 2 cafés to chose from too with a selection of gorgeous looking cakes and other snacks.
Think you’ve seen it all before? Probably not. YSP commission different artists throughout the year so some of the work available to see here changed quite often. You can check out their website for information on what’s on throughout the year.
The car park is huge and is controlled by ANPR cameras (automatic number plate recognition) which is pretty impressive, it’s zaps you on your way in and all you need to do is visit one of the pay machines at any point during your visit and tap in your registration number. The machine wil calculate your parking cost. which is a maximum of £8 for the full day. It’s much easier than having to go back to the car to ‘pay & display’.
We really enjoyed our visit to YSP and we will definitely return later in the year to see how it changes, especially if this lovely weather decides to stick around!
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I love this place — a wide open space dotted with some fantastic sculptural artworks, a great exhibition hall and some of the coolest cows in Yorkshire. I have been to YSP twice and managed to pick sunny days on both occasions. Entry to the park is the cost of parking your car (£8 for a day) so fill it with as many people as possible and you’ve got yourself a bargain day out.
Once you arrive, have a pit stop in the main YSP building and then get walking. It is a 2 km walk from one side of the park to the other with no toilets along the way, so plan ahead. You can wander through wooded park land, up hills, along lake sides and across open cow-​filled fields. Then out of the blue you will stumble across a sculpture that sits beautifully into the landscape.
This is a fantastic way to spend a day — pack a picnic and take your time strolling through the park. Definitely worth the visit.

Yorkshire sculpture park is one of my favourite days out on a half decent day.
The park itself it’s massive, for the outside pieces you’ll walk for quite a way between installations (and probably miss a lot!)
There are a couple of circular walks you can do — the shorter one is more about the walk than the art but the longer one goes up to the ‘Longside gallery’. Be warned on two counts — for one it is really quite a long walk (about 3 hours for us although this did include a few tea breaks) and secondly and most important, the gallery is not open year round! Highly recommend that you check before you go — even if you are only after the walk the toilets are only open when the gallery is.
We had with us a relatively lightweight pushchair and there were some parts that were a bit tough going — there’s a lot of uneven ground and some stepped areas (including the 79 steps artwork — they are shallow though and there’s a bit of a slope at the side)
Now much closer in you’ve got the indoor galleries which are frequently changing installations and the area directly around the buildings too. At the moment there is also an Ai Weiwei exhibit in the chapel (cunningly named Ai Weiwei in the chapel… whoever wrote that didn’t think about getting the more childish minds in the proper mindset, that includes MrD and I!) This is just 5 minutes walk or so from the car park.
Overall you can focus on the walking or the art or a bit of both, and the main restaurant tends to do a good spread (i tend to like the ploughman’s platters they sometimes have on special — highly recommend) I haven’t tried the café in the other set of buildings yet so can’t comment on that.
If you are looking around outside at all I’d recommend putting a whole day aside for the trip.

I can fully see why Yorkshire Sculpture Park won museum of the year 2014. The place is absolutely amazing and combines art, sculpture and stunning landscapes in 70 acres of gorgeous parkland. Parking costs £8 but as the museum is free to enter I didn’t feel that was too bad.
The park is set in the grounds of what used to be Bretton Hall and the lake and greenery that surrounds the sculptures is stunning. There are so many sculptures and exhibits to see. I think the highlight for me was the seizure exhibit by Roger Hiorns which had transformed an empty council flat in Southwark, London, into a sparkling blue environment of copper sulphate crystals. Apparently seizure was created using 75,000 litres of liquid copper sulphate, which was pumped into the former council flat to create a strangely beautiful and somewhat menacing crystalline growth on the walls, floor, ceiling and bath of the abandoned dwelling. Amazing!!! There was also interesting work by Andy Goldsworthy and Anthony Gormley to view.
Even if you are not that into art and sculpture the park itself is well worth a visit. The lake and surrounding grounds have been beautifully landscaped and there are loads of tables and space to have a picnic also because the grounds are so big the place never seems over crowded and you can find a tranquil spot to sit and enjoy the sun.
A brilliant find which I can’t recommend highly enough for a visit.

One of my favourite places… EVER!
It has everything I’m looking for — two amazing galleries, acres of wonderful parkland containing an ever-​growing collection of sculptures, plus some gorgeous waterside woodland walks.
It’s worth getting there for opening time (10AM) in the summer as the place can get quite busy around the main gallery later in the day. However once you move outside into the park land and open areas, it’s relatively quiet even on a hot summers’ day.
Parking seems pricey £8 a day (less for shorter visits) however for that you get a car-​full of people in with no additional entry fees — a huge bargain in my opinion.
The main gallery is open all year and the longside gallery (1.5KM away) is open in the summer. The walk to the longside gallery takes in more sculptures, woodland and the rise and fall of the yorkshire countryside.
There’s some great examples of land art from Andy Goldsworthy and Anthony Gormely amongst others and some classic Hepworth and Miro. A real treat!

Ever since we moved to yorkshire people have been telling us how wonderful the yorkshire sculpture park is.
The sculpture park is set in 500 acres of a former 18 century country estate. Without the sculptures and the various indoor galleries it would be a stunning (very large) park. The lakes are beautiful and nesting grounds for a large variety of birds and wildfowl.
The sulptures are so well placed, with some being very prominent and others seemingly sneaking up on you as you turn a corner.
We walked around for over 3 hours on a typically blustery yorkshire day and finished off with coffee and cake on the balcony of the lovely café/​restaurant
Already planning our next visit, this time armed with a picnic to spend the day.

BIG… really really big. The Yorkshire Sculpture park is absolutely huge. We’re pleased we went here, it just happened to be on an unusually warm day, so it was a bit exhausting.
The park is huge. It used to be a a stately home and the grounds are now scattered with medium to very large installation art pieces. There is also a museum for indoor art and installations. The park is huge and the maps are ok, but be prepared to wander. Some of the installations are REALLY far away, so do a reality check before you start walking. Also, this park is NOT flat, so be prepared to go up and down hills dodging sheep, sheep poop, and goose poop as you go.
We really enjoyed wandering the park and finding many cool pieces of art. Some of my favorites were the giant sliced up bunny (not quite as weird as it sounds and not gory) and the illuminated «everything is connected». There were several pieces I would have liked to see, but they were just too far away and up hill. When I say far away, it would have taken me an hour+ to walk to them. Did I mention that this park is big?
Before we ever went to the park we had lunch at the café. Skip it. They try to be all fancy with their expensive food options and they aren’t great. The fish cakes were so over seasoned, it was more seasoning than fish. After we wandered around, we got some icy treats from the small shop on the first floor, much better decision than the café! There is also a second car park next to a kids play area and what appeared to be an ice cream shop. So there are lots of options.
There is no cost to wander the park. The only cost is the car park cost. It’s a confusing system to park. You have to go to one of the machines, put in your license plate number, and pay when you are ready to leave. The park says they have some license plate scanning device. If you don’t know your license plate (or «registration» as the Brits say), do what I did and take a picture with your smart phone. It’s always with you then :)
I highly recommend this park. Wear walking shoes and bring some bottled water. It’s a great place to let kids run around and then can even climb on many of the pieces of art (there are some pieces that it’s ok!). Carpool because you pay per car, not per person. Don’t come here if you have limited time. Make a day of it. Bring a picnic and enjoy.

A trip to the sculpture park is always top of my list whenever I have the pleasure of visiting Yorkshire. A day spent with world class sculpture in a natural setting is a special, unique experience — worry not folks; this is the real deal and not a sculpture theme park.
Entrance to the park and the galleries is still free despite all the recent cut backs which have had a big impact on funding for the sculpture park. The car parks are currently charging a not unreasonable £7.50 for the day — however, if you know the area there are a couple of places on the main approach road and the small side roads where you can park for free.
Part of the joy of the sculpture park is that it offers something for everyone. The collection is beautifully curated and there are visiting exhibitions which are always worth travelling to see. If art is not your thing you can go for a wander or just chill
in some of Yorkshire’s finest countryside.
Outside there are top notch sculptures from Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and many others, within 5 or 10 minutes walk of the main galleries. There is much more to see if you make a bit of an effort and really stretch your legs — it’s easy to spend a whole day exploring the extensive grounds of the 500 acre Bretton Estate and some of the most inspiring work is to be found well away from the main site.
Inside you have the YSP centre, Underground Gallery, Bothy Gallery and other interesting spaces. On our visit this week there was the FABRIC –ATION show by Yinka Shonibare; a stunning retrospective collection of work from one the UK’s finest artists. The highlight of this show for me was the beautiful film Addio del Passato which is showing in the 18^th century Chapel.
A must see piece opened this Saturday — Seizure by Roger Hiorns. It’s a faithful recreation of the flat near the Elephant and Castle which he filled with copper sulphate in 2008 creating a stunning interior of blue crystals. It’s a magical experience being inside the building and this piece alone makes a trip to the park worthwhile.
If you are really organised check out the YSP website as there is an ongoing programme of artist talks, workshops, art hikes and such like which are usually reasonably priced or often free.
At some point during the day your thoughts will turn to food and a cold refreshment. If you have brought your own lunch there are plenty of lovely spots with picnic benches. If not you can have some food and drink in the very fine restaurant which serves up hot food at lunchtime until 3pm. The main dishes are not cheap but the quality, preparation and presentation is what you would expect from a good restaurant. On my visits this week I had a very tasty lamb pie, which I struggled to finish, and a lovely plate of salmon salad nicoise which was a joy to eat on the terrace, washed down with a bottle of Yorkshire Blonde, for £9.
We are already looking forward to our next visit.
Enjoy …

Remember that scene in ‘The Sound of Music’ when Maria runs up into the mountains, seemingly located right outside of her convent, and sings and dances around before a scenery that seems way too pretty to be true and is thus probably fake? And you’re like, ‘surely, such a place doesn’t exist in real life! That is totally on green screen.’ Well, people, I’m here to tell you that it’s not green screen, and such places exist. In fact, we have one in Wakefield, England, called the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Fresh, clean Yorkshire air, vast, rolling hills, trees and greenery abound, and a number of (astonishingly tame) loose sheep — the sculpture park definitely makes you want to start twirling and singing about inanimate geological objects coming to life and being able to produce melodies. Plus, the sculptures are amazing, as well, with an impressive smattering of Auguste Rodin and Richard Moore. Best of all, it’s FREE (other than parking, which is £7.50 for the whole day. Womp womp).
Tip: There are two tours led each day, one at 1:30 and one at 3. The first is about the artwork displayed in the park, the second about the landscape. Definitely go on the first one, as you end up getting to see both! Was a wonderful way to spend 90 minutes wandering around the park, while still getting a very comprehensive overview of the sculptures housed here.
Tip 2: The café is really delicious, but don’t eat there unless you want to spend a tenner on a salad. Instead, pack a picnic lunch and sit on the grass (maybe not too close to a sheep).

Had a lovely walk around here today, think it helped that the sun was actually shining! I’m not a huge fan of modern art but really enjoyed having a walk around the lake and the fields to blow the cobwebs away. There was also a film being shown in the old Chapel which was nice to sit and watch for a few minutes. We didn’t get a chance to see everything there as the Park is so huge, next time I’d like to have a look at the Longside Gallery which is at the other end of the site, although they do run a free shuttle bus to and from this gallery when there’s an exhibition on.
We popped into the café/​restaurant before we had to catch our bus home. Had a nosey at the prices for the hot food and it was more than I’d be wanting to pay for a quick lunch, but they stop serving hot food at 3pm. I had a slice of lemon and blueberry cake and a bottle of Dandelion and Burdock. The cake was really yummy and moist. My OH had an almond slice and cherry coke, and together they came to just under a tenner. Both the drinks were Fentiman’s which obviously pushes the price up, but I think most people would expect to pay that when they visit a museum or gallery.
We both really enjoyed a walk around here today, and hopefully we’ll go back in the summer and take a picnic, might make the day even cheaper!

Having driven past here for the last 13 years I’ve been driving up & down the m1, the Mr, my niece, the dog & myself took a visit out there this weekend to use up a Livingsocial deal.
You can go on the website and ‘plan’ your route to get the best of the layout etc but seeing as we had 2 bundles of mischief to contend with we just decided to go & see what happened.
Firstly, Sunday was bloody freezing, secondly, when you try to get back to the main building/​car park its all uphill!!! After walking solidly for 2 hours we didn’t appreciate that!
So, if you are into art & Sculpture then this is a wonderful place to spend the day, also if you just like to walk in nice surroundings.
There are lots of sculptures and installations to look at and admire, a large lake with vicious geese and attractive gardens.
The voucher we had included brunch and parking which was a bargain as parking alone sets you back £7.50!
The restaurant serves some lovely looking food but is a bit expensive (£9.50 for goats cheese tart, chips & salad) and our brunch was very enjoyable.
I must comment that the offerings for kids meals was nice and healthy and my niece certainly had enough.
A few draw backs of the park are–
Lack of staff to ask for advice/​information
Expensive café
Lack of seating areas
We are definitely going to go back though as its a wonderful place surprisingly close and accessible.

It’s been a long time since I last visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, indeed, not since I was a student when the grounds were a part of Bretton Hall arts campus. So what better excuse to revisit than to see the Autumnal edition of Opera North’s Four Seasons? You’re right, no better reason.
Arriving early, so as to wander the grounds, the starting point was at the café. Inside you’ll find a number of exhibitions, a performance space and a number of lovely display cabinets with wonderfully hand made jewellery. The staff in the café are lovely, and you can choose from a range of hot drinks, snacks and ice creams. (It was a little cold for ice cream.)
There’s five hundred acres to explore, so you’ll have your work cut out to take in everything, but the entirety is stunning –even on a brisk September day. The lakes appear to be free to wander around, encased in beautiful forests, with bird hives, the faux greek temple, and the brick structure around the upper lake. Since the mansion itself is, I believe, going to become a hotel I didn’t want to risk wandering on private grounds but there’s so much to adventure through it didn’t matter. Not to mention, the sculptures that you see on your way.
Take your time, take the full day, take a packed lunch. Expect to see hoards of sheep, expect to see gorgeous landscape all around, and expect to relax with stunning green, artful pieces, and revive with the fresh Yorkshire air.
As for the performance itself, this was held in the chapel, within the grounds. I remember this place from our ‘ghost walk’ nearly ten years ago, and I’m sure it’s been fixed up since then. Inside it’s beautiful, minimalist, and the perfect setting for an evening of acoustic wonderment. The set performed varied from lusciously classical pieces, to quartet versions of modern classics, and had us captivated –I highly recommend you check out the final installment on Opera North’s website for a magical experience.
All in all, revisiting was full of fond nostalgia for me, and good for the soul. I implore you to take the time to escape the clutches of Leeds, and enjoy a few hours doing something a little poetic, and something a little creative, in this fine stalwart of the North’s art scene.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park is the biggest open-​air arts site of its kind in the UK if not the world. A recent renovation and modernisation of its facilities, car parking space and exhibition space has led to it becoming quite an attraction. It is perfectly equipped to sustain a whole days visit by tourists from afar.
YSP owns modernist sculptures by Hepworth and Moore which are dotted around the park, as well as holding touring exhibitions by internationally acclaimed artists, most often associated with land-​art, works with sculptural quality or works based on observations of nature. YSP appears to work and be loved by its visitors due to the accessibility of the pieces on display — artists are chosen seemingly because of their commitment to craft as well as concept — perhaps a shift happening in other areas of art steadily now. Some of the sculpture can be appreciated purely because of its aesthetic appeal, because it might remind us of a ‘bunny rabbit’ (Sophie Ryder) or a maternal, feminine figure,(Moore) whilst other work might quietly allows us to contemplate our own identity and relationship with nature and her forces.(James Turrell)
The grounds themselves are stunning, with wide expanses of land giving way to small thickets of woodland and a small lake in the centre of the park. There are ‘Secret Garden’ walled areas with rose bushes and clematis and a folly to be found for the adventurous. There are multiple guided walks which take the viewer past various pieces throughout the park, re-​assuring the less confident that they will have the opportunity to see al the park has to offer without having to don a Marco-​Polo alter-​ego!
My favourite piece in the park is undoubtedly James Turell’s Deer Shelter, a renovated Victorian Deer shelter converted into a large minimalist aperture which captures the colours and movements of the sky. Again, this piece can be enjoyed for its painterly re-​presenation of the sky, or used as a device for thinking about nature as a whole.
The YSP café itself is a little pricey but is to be expected from this type of environment but certainly serves some nice food and coffee, with a veranda looking out towards the Deer Shelter and the rest of the park. The visitor centre is constructed from Beech, glass and metal, with the wood in particular now turning white with age as it mellows. The shop sells prints and books about the various works on display as well as exhibiting collectable work of jewellers, printmakers and more fine-​art oriented objects, mostly decorative pieces.
YSP is highly recommended, it makes a superb day. It isn’t stuffy or intense, it allows the works to mingle into your experience of walking through a landscape by enjoying what you already know to enjoy!

I have had many great days and afternoons here,
There has been a boost in this place since many schools are now taking art to the next level. I moved to Flockton a local village 2 years ago and since there has been trips from my old school in Derbyshire to the YSP.
If your a family or a couple there is something for all.
Walking and even going for a picnic, The car park is around £5 which is a little high but the money does go towards the YSP trust.
There is a small café on the grounds aswel as the restaurant in the main building, the café has hold and cold drinks and is normally only open in the summer with a selection of ice cream.
If you want a day out thats local and in the hearty country this is the place.
Busses run from Wakefield, Huddersfield, and some from Doncaster,

Not strictly in Leeds but just a short bus ride away, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a fantastic place to spend a day. I used to live here when the Palladian mansion at the heart of the estate was a University of Leeds campus, and can vouch from experience that the 500 acres of woodland, parkland and gardens where the park is set have a beautiful atmosphere throughout the year. The sculpture park consists of four indoor galleries and a variety of trails and walks that take in the 100+ works situated outside across the estate. There are works from well known local artists like Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, and a wide selection of permanent and temporary exhibits which utilise the natural setting to varying degrees of success. It’s a great place to just wander around and see what you can spot — look out for a typically Anthony Gormley human figure hiding up a tree, and ruins in the woods which may or may not be art. There’s also a restaurant — overpriced but tasty — a gift shop and conferencing facilities.