Discover Children’s Story Centre is the UK’s first story Centre for children, and is a place where families can play, learn and create stories together. It is a not for profit organisation, aiming to open children’s minds and support an early love of language, literature and stories.
Discover Children’s Story Centre is aimed for children aged 0-11 and their families. Albeit young babies will still enjoy the sensory experiences, especially in the Storytelling Room, personally I think your child will get the most from the visit once they are able to confidently walk.
Discover Children’s Story Centre is in Stratford, London. The full address is 383-387 High Street , Stratford, London, E15 4QZ.
Public transport is your best bet for travelling to the Discover Children’s Story Centre, as it is a short walk from Stratford International Station, Stratford Station and Stratford High Street Station. It is also on many bus routes, and has cycle parking outside the front door on Stratford High Street.
Unfortunately, parking isn’t great around Stratford and Discover Children’s Story Centre does not have on site parking. If you do want to drive, your best bet is Stratford Multi-Storey Car Park (5 min walk) or Stratford Westfield Shopping Centre Car Park (10 min walk).
There are closer parking bays if you are a blue badge holder.
Tickets for Discover Children’s Story Centre are currently £7.50 per person per session (sessions are 2 hour slots), with adults and children costing the same. There is a reduced rate for babies – 1 year olds are £2 and under 1s are free. Concession tickets or bulk tickets are available, so be sure to check their website and have a look at the options when booking online.
You can also purchase add ons to your visit, such as storytelling sessions or the exhibitions, which are only a few pounds per ticket.
Overall it is a very reasonably priced day out, and there are also annual passes available from only £42 if you plan on visiting lots!
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We attended Discover Children’s Story Centre on Friday 11th February 2022. It had been on my list to try ever since Arthur was born, so I was extremely excited to try it out – I’d heard nothing but good things!
As we live within walking distance to Ebbsfleet International Train Station, we decided to travel to Stratford by taking the Southeastern High Speed train to Stratford International – this meant our train journey was only around 10 minutes long, which was perfect for us seeing as this was Arthur’s first train journey since he was a baby.
We had booked the 10am – 12pm session, so travelled at around 9am. One thing to note if you also decide to travel on the High Speed line to Stratford International is the cost – it cost us £60 for myself and my partner to travel, and that was including discount by having a rail card! Luckily under 5’s travel for free on Southeastern, so we didn’t incur any additional expenses there.
After arriving at Stratford International, we exited the train station, passing the children’s playground, and walked into Westfield Shopping Centre. It was a fairly easy walk through the Shopping Centre and across the bridge to the High Street – Google Maps took us exactly where we needed to go, so I would advise following the route on your phone rather than winging it in the Shopping Centre.
Once at Discover Children’s Story Centre, we checked in at the reception desk where we were given wrist bands for our Fairy Tales exhibition slot – we had chosen the second entry slot for the exhibition at 11:25am. This meant we had 1 hour and 25 minutes to explore all Discover Children’s Story Centre had to offer and 35 minutes in the Fairy Tales exhibition.
It’s important to note that before you enter the magical story area there is a small shop and buggy parking with lockers, which you can access throughout your visit whenever you need.
When you walk into Discover Children’s Story Centre you are immediately transported into another world. There are two floors of Story Worlds and a Story Garden. Downstairs you can explore caves, tip toe over a wobbly musical bridge, sail a ship or put on a puppet show in the Castle. Find the reading nook, look through the windows to discover secret miniature worlds and explore the sensory light show inside the cave. There’s an arts and crafts area too – when we attended, there was everything you needed to build a spoon person!
Upstairs, help Hootah, the resident baby alien, explore space. Fly in a rocket, explore a space station, slide into space, explore the cave and clouds or do some drawings in the Illustration Stations. There’s even a Story Factory for older children to write stories of their own, with some great prompts and activity sheets to help them. We accidentally stumbled across the Storytelling Space upstairs, hidden through the doors by the cloud area, which is a wonderful sensory and immersive audio space. It was running the ‘Snow’ exhibition, decorated with curtains along the walls, soft animals and a snowy scene. It was always empty, so I’m not sure people knew it was there! On the speakers, a voice softly tells a story with sound effects. It was a calm oasis away from the excitement of the Story Worlds. The cafe is next door – we didn’t try anything, but it looked great!
Outside, in the Story Garden, is a great playground full of secrets to explore. Play in the little house, cook in the mud kitchen, play musical instruments, explore a spaceship and crawl through tunnels or slide down slides. I loved the attention to detail in the Story Garden, with lots of little things to explore all over the garden.
The resident staff Story Builders have pop up storytelling sessions – listen out for any announcements informing you of a storytelling session beginning. I used this opportunity to whizz around and take photos of the venue without other children in them, but I caught Arthur acting out some crocodile snaps and he looked enthralled!
There are also storytelling sessions and shows that you can purchase tickets for as add ons when you book online, such as ‘Grow’ for 0-3 year olds, a show celebrating the joys of nature, or free baby storytelling sessions.
Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our time here and my Discover Children’s Story Centre review is most certainly a positive one. It was a little bit busier than we would have ideally liked – our fault for booking on the Friday before half term – but Arthur didn’t seem to mind whatsoever and he had an absolute blast. I am definitely looking forward to returning in the future when Ada is older!
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If you’re looking for other fun things to do with your children, why not check out all of my other reviews of days out or try the Superworm Trail at Jeskyns Community Woodlands in Kent?
