A Watford friend had mentioned Ruislip Lido as a good place to visit so on bank holiday Sunday, on one of the warmest days of the summer, we decided to brave the crowds and check it out.

First hurdle was finding a parking spot! The council are obviously used to managing a large number of visitors and had stewards ensuring people knew exactly which area to park in. We were lucky and managed to get one of the last spots for non-Hillingdon residents.

The lido is a reservoir and has a beach on one side. Unfortunately, there are signs saying you can’t swim in it due to green algae but that wasn’t stopping lots of people enjoying cooling off in the water when we were there.

On the beach, there’s a pretty cool playground and just off the beach is a splashpark. We didn’t think the splashpark was as good as the one in Cassiobury or King George Recreation Ground in Bushey, as the fountains came on one by one, which meant that all the kids rushed from one to the other and the smaller kids did get knocked over at times, including our son. Another downside was the toilets!

The chief highlight of our visit was the miniature train! This is brilliant and we would really recommend it. The journey lasts quite a long time and for £2 for an adult single (kids under three go free), seemed good value compared to the the train in Cassiobury Park.

The train journey takes you round one side of the lido and you can see the walk that runs parallel to it along one side and the Ruislip Woods National Nature Reserve on the other. We definitely want to come back and do more exploring but were glad that the train was whisking us back to the car park as it was a very hot day!