Little Street Children’s Role Play Wallington – Review

A fire fighter, a pizza chef, a beauty therapist, a supermarket cashier, a vet – what does your child want to be today? At Little Street they can be any of these and more – with zones and props to fuel imaginations, spark role play and facilitate understanding of the world around them.

A new Little Street has opened in Wallington and it seems like a fantastic addition to the high street. We were lucky enough to win free tickets to their opening day via a competition on Facebook and I was keen to see what my five (almost six)-year old thought.

Everything is bright and brand new and looks really well designed and made. There’s a lobby area (with a secure gate so little ones can’t get out during play sessions) and small cafe, then a central area with various shops and other venues you would expect in a little town, complete with all the props you might expect and more.

The central area has a stationery fire engine to climb in, complete with fire fighter’s uniform and equipment, with a little road around it where children can circle around on ride-on cars (watch your feet!). There’s a picnic area with a play barbecue, loads of food and even some cuddly squirrels and a construction zone where you can don a high-vis jacket and build with bricks. The theatre area has a rail of good quality dressing up costumes ranging from Moana, Frozen’s Anna and Mirabel from Encanto to Chase from Paw Patrol, Iron Man and a unicorn onesie, and a stage to give your best performance.

It was the other sets that I liked most though due to their level of detail. In the vet’s surgery, there’s an operating table and medical set, a pet boarding house complete with stuffed animals and their names on each cubby hole, a computer with a screen showing appointments and medical information cards. In the pizza restaurant, there are tables with menus, a pizza oven, an ice cream counter and good quality play food where you can pretend to be making meals and serving customers. The supermarket has an impressive selection of grocery items but what elevated it for me (and my daughter) was the laminated shopping lists with both words and pictures, the baskets and trolleys with baby dolls in the child trolley seats, and the fact that you could collect everything on your shopping list (which were all different), go to the checkout and have it bagged up and pay.#

We also particularly liked the beauty salon, with a phone and appointment calendar, a counter with seats in front of a mirror and a range of props including hairdressing scissors, hair straighteners, various sprays and lotions, make up (pretend) with real make-up brushes and two baskets of hair accessories. There’s a sign giving a gentle reminder that adults should not sit in the chairs, and that anything belonging to Little Street should be left behind when you leave, but otherwise you are free to role play however you like.

We also found a postbox containing several letters, a postal worker’s bag and uniform and realised that each shop or restaurant had its own mailbox on the outside, so my daughter enjoyed going round and delivering the colour-coded letters to each establishment.

Everything is returned to its original place at the end of each 85 minute session, meaning all role play zones are restored to exactly how they should be; there were members of staff circulating and putting things back during the session as well.

I had wondered if my daughter might be a little old, even though Little Street is aimed at children up to the age of 7. I would say the idea age probably is about 3-4 but there is plenty to do for younger or older children – though when my daughter wanted to dress up she did find she was too big for the unicorn onesie.

Wallington is the 7th of Little Street’s locations – they are run as franchises and I’m told this one is under the same ownership as the one in Sevenoaks. Their ticket prices are £7.75 per child on weekends and school holidays or £6.95 off peak, and adults pay £4.95 each. I have to admit I do take issue with adult charges when the children can’t go in unaccompanied, especially if the adults are just sitting and watching and spending money in the cafe anyway – though adults are allowed into the role play zones and can get involved as much as they like. They also plan to take bookings for birthday parties once they have been open a few months – where you will get private hire for the duration of the 85 minute play session.

I can see this being really popular both as somewhere to take your children on a weekend or as a venue for a birthday party and we definitely enjoyed our experience today.