Visit to fineshade woods on Sunday 4th July 2021. We went for a walk using the gruffalo trail walk. It wasn’t busy due to the weather forecast. Fabulous walks of different abilities. There was quite a lot of dog mess on the paths (some fox poo too but that’s unavoidable) . Went to the cafe to grab something for the journey home, had a bacon & brie panini at @£4.75 It wasn’t the best to be honest(see pics) a sausage roll at £2.40 is your best choice value & quality . I thought the cafe was quite overpriced for what you got. Everything was bread & cakes no individual salads or meals from what I could see. There’s a camping & caravan sight attached to the sight that the proprietor of the cafe could capture the footfall with meals etc from this but nothing on the menu really for them. Overall a nice place for a stroll but some dog walkers need to be advised & the cafe should br a lot better than it is, quite why it’s not I don’t understand.

We had two young children with us and we did one of the trails , great fun with various challenges available and great for the imagination. The food and drinks were reasonably priced. Although I don’t have a dog it was good to see many well behaved dogs obviously tired after a long walk welcome in the cafe area. It was crowded but had a great family and friendly atmosphere.

My daughter likes the gruffalo so we made a trip to visit here. We were local to Delesmere in Chesire and also Cannock earloer so we were going to vosot the parka there which had gruffalo but some reviews were vague and bad. Theres not so much info online so heres a brief summary for Gruffalo fans. Land up in the cafe car park, £4 for 2 hours or £6 all day. Go to the cafe and buy either a £3.50 activity pack or £1.50 map. The former is basically a bag with a gruffalo eye mask, gruffalo paper hands, a few stickers and and an small activity book more aimed at above age 4. Download the gruffalo spotters app before you head out. On the other side of the car park theres basically a sign to say orienteering gruffalo starts here. Just walk down the path and every 10 mins youll come across a sign with a specific colour and picture. When you open the app and point the phone to the specific sign, the character will pop up in ar form and you'll be able to take a photo woth the animal. Theres the four signs to see in ar such as the owl, fox, snake and mouse. The final one is the gruffalo in ar too. And then thats it. You go home. The walk takes about 45 minutes. Doable by pushchairs albeit its bumpy as its all just rocky. When we returned to the cafe the staff member asked if we saw the wooden gruffalo. This is something I understand is mappwd out on the £1.50 booklet but no mention on the £3.50 one. There are no signs pointing out where it is but after seeing the snake and walking, youll can eother go straight down a hill which is marked by a black arrow or you can turn right which takes you to the cafe again. Turning right leads you to the ar gruffalo so tou can complete the app. But of you go down the hill, tucked in the corner is a wooden lifesize gruffalo. It could do with a lick of paint but overall it made the visit worthwhile. So overall, go for the ar walk but downlosd the app before, its pointless getting the activity booklet unless you have kids which will want to play wordsearch, dot to dot and play with some few stickers. And dont forget to go and see the actual wooden griffalo. You have to walk up the hill again and them turn left to continue and finish the ar gruffalo. The cafe has a small wooden playground for small kids to get them more tired before you head home. Hope that helps.

We decided to have a cup of tea in the courtyard of this nice cafe with our dog, while walking in the woods today. In normal times one of us would have sat in the courtyard with the dog while the other went inside and brought out tea and cake. I know these are not normal times but we did not expect them to be less safe than normal! Because there was a one way system operating, we could not enter the courtyard but had to walk round to a door at the back of the building. This meant walking through a big crowd of young children enjoying the play area. Not normally a problem, but I am avoiding my own grandchildren at the moment. I did not need to get so close to about a hundred of other people's! Anyway, after that obstacle we put on masks because we saw that we were then expected to enter the building and join a queue of customers, indoors, close standing and many without masks! I thought masks were obligatory at the moment inside public buildings and hospitality venues. When we realised that there was a queue, and that everyone was standing without any distancing and that it was still operating as a cafeteria, we felt very uncomfortable! I thought cafes etc had to be table service only at the moment, to avoid all that close standing around together. I must have got it wrong because there were a lot of customers happily jostling while they waited to reach the counter. However we did not feel safe so we left, without any tea and cake.

We called in here looking for somewhere for some lunch and enjoyed our visit. There were seven staff in the cafe which was a surprise but still service was quite slow. Cakes and choice of drinks was great though. Outdoor and indoor seating available. Clean toilets. We really enjoyed our visit.

Loved our walk through the snowy paths today, not too busy either. Finished it off with a hot (tish) drink in the cafe. Cafe staff were wearing their masks on their chins ??? :O( Toilets very clean. Car park prices somewhat pricey.

Lovely place. Enclosed courtyard and play area. Surrounded by woods with various paths depending on the distance you want to walk. Very Covid conscious. The cafe is lovely, staff are excellent and service prompt. We were very kindly allowed to use their barn adjacent as we had a number of little people that needed controlling. We spent the entire day there, and will definitely be back.

It was amazing to find this little gem. Outstanding in every way possible. Staff and food excellent. I was delighted with the cleanliness, the polite and well presented staff and the fact we could get a gluten free toasted sandwich. Oh, by the way, the toasties were simply the best I have had a few but these were gorgeous and the chap bringing them remembered to keep gluten free separate. It was also very reasonable three toasties and three drinks for under £20. We were so impressed that as soon as we got back we bought a membership and are heading there every weekend to enjoy the walk and have a lovely lunch.

Lovely walk through the woods. Did the short smelters trail (yellow) first then stopped for lunch in the courtyard of the lovely Grounds Café before doing the much longer Old Mill (pink) walk. A lovely day out with a tasty lunch and super dog friendly! The café even had doggy ice cream!

Nice place to go. Gruffalo trail kept the kids walking but I wouldn't go out of your way for it as the one at Cannock chase is far better as it has a huge wooden gruffalo and more things to play on along the way. Was very disappointed with the amount of dog poo on the paths and even saw some hanging in bags in the trees. I'd say dog owners need to be educated but there also needs to be dog poo bins available for them to use!