A historic, award winning and beautifully maintained park in the heart of Loughborough town centre.

Queen's Park is a much loved local park which has achieved a Green Flag award every year since 2008, a mark of excellence awarded to parks and green spaces. It was first opened in June 1899 to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

It offers people a wide range of things to do and is a very popular park with local residents and visitors to the town.

There is a large amount of open grassland for recreation as well as a large number of paths for short walks and plenty of places to sit and catch up with friends. It is home to a range of facilities and combined with the large number of trees, shrubs and fantastic floral displays, Queen's Park provides the perfect place to play, relax or learn.

The park is home to a variety of facilities including:

  • Under 12s play area
  • Challenging activities for young people involving balancing, swinging and climbing.
  • Bowling Green
  • Carillon Tower War Memorial and Museum
  • Bandstand
  • Aviaries
  • Swan Maze
  • Charnwood Museum

The park is easily reached by foot, bicycle, car or bus. There are several entrances to the park on Brown's Lane, New Street and Granby Street.

Pay and display car parking is available close to the park at the Granby Street Car Park.

Opening times for the park

The park opens at 7.40am on weekdays and 8.10am on weekends. 

The park closes at different times during the year. The last gate to be locked is Granby Street. Please vacate the park by this time.

Closing times by month:

  • January - 4.30pm
  • February - 5pm
  • March - 6pm
  • April - 8pm
  • May - 9pm
  • June - 9pm
  • July - 9pm
  • August - 8pm
  • September - 7pm
  • October - 6pm
  • November - 4.30pm
  • December - 4pm

Queen’s Park Café

The Queen's Park Cafe is situated next to Charnwood Museum. The café serves food, hot drinks, and snacks.

Works will be taking place from Monday March 4 to improve the outside seating area of the cafe. The improvements are being funded through Loughborough Town Deal as part of the Living Loughborough project.

During the works, the cafe will be open Wednesday to Saturday between 10am-3pm. Customers will be able to access the cafe through Charnwood Museum while the cafe entrance is closed to faciliate the works.

You can follow the Queen's Park Cafe on social media by visiting their Facebook page.

Queen's Park Summer bandstand concerts

Our summer programme of concerts resumed in 2023 with a concert from the LSU Classical Concert Band on Sunday May 14 and ended on Sunday August 27 with the Quorn Ukulele Band.

All concerts commenced at 2pm and were FREE to attend.

Public Art

Since 2012, Queen's Park has hosted a number of unique sculptures designed by students from Loughborough University. Each year the sculptures are commissioned by us as part of the annual Loughborough in Bloom competition.

Students from the University's School of the Arts has so far designed sculptures to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic Games, the casting of the Great Paul Bell Casing by the Taylor Bell Foundry and the Centenary of the start of the First World War.

Friends of Queen’s Park

The Friends of Queen's Park is a volunteer group of local people devoted to the care and protection of Queen’s Park. Their aim is to restore this lovely example of a Victorian Park. They want to ensure that it remains true to its original concept; to provide a peaceful, beautiful and enjoyable green place for people of all ages to enjoy now and in the future.

New members are always welcome and meetings are bi-monthly.

Friends of Queen's Park can be found on Twitter.

History

  • 1899 - Queen's Park was officially opened by Mr W.B. Paget, as four acres of land.
  • 1902 - The Bandstand was officially opened, near to the Granby Street entrance, but by 1914 it had been moved to its current position beneath the Carillon.
  • 1905 to 1907 - an additional six acres of land were acquired from the adjoining dye works and development of the space continued.
  • 1916 - The final piece of land was purchased to complete the park as the size and shape we know it today.
  • 1922 - The foundation stones were laid for the Carillon tower which opened a year later.
  • 1928 - The stone balustrade around the Carillon tower was in place as well as the ornate New Street gate. Since this time the park has remained largely unchanged in its layout.

Last updated: Tue 27th February, 2024 @ 15:40