Avondale House, Wicklow – An Essential Travel Guide for 2025

Avondale House and Forest Park nestles in the centre of County Wicklow, a 5 minute drive from the village of Rathdrum. Spend an hour in this part of Ireland’s Ancient East and you will soon see why Wicklow is known as the Garden County. Irish forestry traces its beginnings here but it is more famous for being the home of the great Irish statesman Charles Stewart Parnell, born here in 1846.

Visitors can enjoy its forest park trails and walled gardens but Avondale’s popularity has exploded since the Beyond the Trees experience opened in 2022. This combined effort by Coillte, Fáilte Ireland and EAK Ireland features the longest Treetop Walk in Ireland & the UK, at 1.4km! Is there more to the forest park than this cool spiral structure?

Read on to find out!

Public Transport: Rathdrum is the nearest village and, although small, has its own train station and is surprisingly well connected to Dublin.

The DART and Dublin to Rosslare train serve Rathdrum from Dublin City, with each journey taking around 1 hour 20 minutes. The Dublin to Rosslare service costs around €26.00 for a return ticket. Travelling from Belfast to Rathdrum by train requires first travelling to Dublin and will take you over 5 hours in total!

If travelling from within County Wicklow, the wheelchair accessible TFI Local Link service is the best and cheapest way to go. Their 183 bus links Rathdrum to Arklow, Avoca, Wicklow Town, Glendalough, Blessington as well as other rural destinations. Fares vary from service to service but children under the age of 5 travel for free. Buy tickets in advance via the TFI Go app as contactless payment isn’t currently available.

View DART Timetables for Rathdrum

Buy Local Link Tickets using the TFI Go App

The state-of-the-art Visitor’s Centre is home to the brilliant wheelchair accessible Seed Café, which serves delicious lunches created using locally sourced ingredients. They serve soup and sandwiches, as well as more substantial meals such as curries.

Upstairs you will find relaxing couches while downstairs is home to a cafeteria-style restaurant. Children can enjoy the great playground outside the downstairs café, while you monitor them through glass windows and enjoy some grub. There is an outdoor seating area for you to enjoy treats al fresco on hot summer days.

Opening hours vary but the café generally opens at 9am from April to August and closes around 6pm.

Hot Beverages: The Seed Café is the place to go for your coffee and tea at Avondale. The brews themselves are admittedly nothing special but they can be enjoyed in a relaxing setting looking out onto the walled garden. Make use of the playground here and allow your children to run wild while you enjoy your coffee in peace!

The gift shop below the viewing tower contains coffee machines that provide a tasty alternative to the Seed Café’s brews. This is a great place to warm yourself up after your climb, as the top of the viewing tower can get chilly!

Alcohol: There is no bar nor alcohol served here.

The small walled garden at Avondale originated from a fruit and vegetable garden that sat here over 300 years ago! Sitting just outside of the Seed Café at the beginning of the experience, it contains a children’s playground, an outdoor dining terrace, as well as refill stations for your water bottles.

The garden itself is home to a variety of colourful flowers and appetizing fruit and vegetables, which are harvested for use in the Seed Café. Grab yourself a takeaway coffee and sit on one of the many benches to enjoy the aromas and sounds of the area. Enter the Coillte Pavilion exhibition from the gardens to learn about the environmental effects of Coillte’s forestry and conservation exploits.

Avondale becomes a busy hive of activity during the summer months. Although it caters to the crowds very well we recommend visiting in late September to have the place almost to yourself! Laughter fills the air on dry days as children enjoy themselves at the playground and on the many mini play areas along the treetop walk.

The treetop walk is a place of pure peace. Make the most of it by taking an interest in the many unusual species of trees in front of you. Take time to listen to the chorus of birds calling in the air.

For the number one lesson in relaxation why not attend a special event such as Sunrise Yoga? For €50 each you will embark on a 2 hours 30 minutes experience, featuring a meditative walk to the summit of the viewing tower followed by yoga and a healthy breakfast.

Book Sunrise Yoga

The Beyond the Treetops Walk and Viewing Tower experience at Avondale costs €16 for an adult, with discounted family rates available. Tickets for Beyond the Treetops can be bought at their cheapest via the link below.

Buy Tickets for Beyond the Treetops

A 1.4km wooden boardwalk somehow takes you gradually above the trees without being at all strenuous. Children and disabled patrons can easily traverse the path, with wheelchairs available to rent at the visitor’s centre. Those fearful of heights can follow the Below the Treetops Walk underneath while enjoying alternative views of the same trees.

Lining the boardwalk are informative signs and graphics, designed for children and adults alike to enjoy. They will keep you informed about all of the local trees and fauna. You’ll witness unusual yew, larch and oak trees, as well as giant redwoods on a trail which ends at the spiraling Viewing Tower.

The treetop walk is truly unique, not only because it is the first of its kind in Ireland, but because it can be enjoyed equally by people of all ages and abilities. It is the best experience we have ever visited in Ireland for people with disabilities. Accessible toilets are available at both ends of the trail. Furthermore, although the website says no mobility scooters are allowed, they usually allow them once the machine isn’t overly bulky. There are wheelchairs available onsite if that is the case anyway.

Avondale’s star attraction is undoubtedly the Viewing Tower – one of the most unique constructions in Ireland. A wheelchair accessible walkway takes you up the 38m high structure, offering views of the Irish countryside as you walk. Soak in panoramic views in every direction over the Wicklow Mountains and the Vale of Avoca.

Signs at the top level of the structure tell you exactly what you are looking at in each direction. This experience should be tackled on a clear day to ensure the most spectacular vistas.

Almost as famous as the ascending tower is the 90 meter slide within! It’s optional whether you want to descend on foot or using the slide but we highly recommend doing it. It is slow, well staffed and not scary at all. We guarantee that it will awaken a giddy inner child in even the sternest of patrons!

The slide costs €2 and this is not included in the admission cost (cheeky!) but they will accept both card and cash at the top. Children under the age of 6 cannot ride the slide alone, but may if they are accompanied by an adult. During peak times the queue for the slide can be up to 90 minutes, but we visited in September and encountered no queue at all.

The 18th century Avondale House was once the home of Charles Stewart Parnell. Charles, one of 11 Parnell family children, inherited the house when he was just 21. The responsibility of running the estate helped shape him into the great political figure that he became. Access to the house is not included in the €16 Treetop Walk and Viewing Tower experience.

You can purchase a combined House and Treetop Walk experience for €29 per adult, with discounted family rates available. This ticket includes a guided tour, where a local will spend 45 minutes to an hour teaching you about the fascinating characters that once graced this wonderful abode.

Again, like the rest of the Avondale experience, the house tour is very much accessible!

View Family Rates for Beyond the Treetops Walk