The Woodland Trust

Treasure Trails Lancashire was commissioned to devise, design and create a series of six Trails for The Woodland Trust's Woodland Communities Project in Runcorn which were delivered over a period of six weeks in the summer of 2011.

The Woodland Communities Project was a three-year £266,000 scheme which commenced in 2009 and aimed to increase local appreciation of woodland for its recreational, health and educational benefits. In particular it sought to re-connect families and young people with their environment and to reverse elements of anti-social behaviour, including fly-tipping, which until then had rendered many local woods 'no-go' areas.

The aim of the Trails was to encourage the use of the woods among the community, to educate people about the woods and promote them as a safe environment and to teach people to respect the woods which suffer from fly-tipping, fires, vandalism, and bike riding. Educating the community about the trees and wildlife within the woods was a secondary consideration and a welcome though not critical by-product of the project.

It was felt that a treasure hunt game, culminating in a prize, was the best approach to engage the target audience.

The Solution

The challenges in designing the Trails were that firstly the woods contained very few features that would normally be used in devising a treasure trail (i.e. there were no buildings or inscriptions and very few signs) and secondly that not all the six woods had distinct paths which made it difficult to use a Trail format that followed a set route of directions.

In some cases the lack of suitable material was overcome by introducing items into the woods. Week 1’s Trail, entitled ‘Skip It’, introduced not only woodland creatures that had to be found in their normal habitat but also household items such as a kettle and old tyre. The woodland creatures contributed to the overall solution of the game whereas the household items were ‘skipped’ to enforce the message about what should be in the woodlands and what shouldn’t. In Week 2, ‘The Woodland Playground’, the woodland became the board and the participants the dice in a giant game of snakes and ladders whilst in Week 5 the participants navigated their way through the wood by answering multiple-choice questions in a Nature Quiz, following a trail of coloured arrows relating to the answers.

The solutions to weeks 1 to 5 provided the clue and answer to the final solution of the treasure hunt in week 6’s wood. The game was printed on a weekly basis on the back page of the local free newspaper which was distributed to 20,000 local residences.

Lancashire NEWS

Treasure Trails Lancashire has been shortlisted for the Best Visitor Experience at the 2011 Lancashire & Blackpool Tourism Awards. Read more...

The Trails

The Trails can be downloaded FREE using the following links:

Wood 1: Windmill Hill Wood
Wood 2: Railway Plantation
Wood 3: The Gorse
Wood 4: Murdishaw
Wood 5: Haddocks Wood
Wood 6: Fountains Wood

Developed with funding assistance from: