Photo: Donama · CC BY-SA 3.0Parks and walks in Thurston
39% of residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park or playing field. Parks and playing fields in Thurston add up to 1.6 ha for every 1,000 residents; the typical UK town has 2.1. Footpaths add up to 28 km in the town and the kilometre around it, 2.1 for every square kilometre. Thurston grades D for the outdoors. A character grade: it isn’t part of the overall grade.
Thurston grades D for the outdoors
Each chart is every UK town of 1,000 or more on one measure: the green bar is Thurston, the dashed line the typical town. The number is the share of towns it beats; the five are averaged and the average ranked again.
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Graded, never part of the overall grade (like History and Civic life). It measures what is mapped: OS Open Greenspace leaves out woodland and open-access land that isn’t a park, and OpenStreetMap’s rural paths are more complete in some places than others.
How Thurston compares with UK towns of 2,900 to 3,100
The 60 UK towns and cities of 2,900 to 3,100 people with an Outdoors Grade. Hover a dot for its figures; tap one for its page.
Thurston falls furthest behind on homes near a park, where 56 of the 59 others do better.
Show as a table
| Town | Outdoors | Green space | Near a park | Path per km² | Protected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rowlands Castle Hampshire | A+ | 26.1 | 100% | 5 | 48% |
| 2 | Halling Kent | A+ | 3.8 | 100% | 4.6 | 54% |
| 3 | Arundel West Sussex | A+ | 4.4 | 100% | 3.8 | 56% |
| 4 | Theale Berkshire | A+ | 5 | 100% | 3.8 | 39% |
| 5 | Cuxton Kent | A+ | 25.2 | 90% | 4 | 44% |
| 6 | Horton Heath Hampshire | A+ | 10 | 100% | 3.3 | 13% |
| 7 | Beaminster Dorset | A | 4.1 | 89% | 3.4 | 100% |
| 8 | Ebbsfleet Valley Kent | A | 9 | 77% | 8.3 | 0% |
| 9 | Downton Wiltshire | A | 4.3 | 100% | 2 | 59% |
| 10 | Langwith Derbyshire | A | 19.6 | 100% | 3.7 | 0% |
| 11 | Ellistown Leicestershire | A | 7.5 | 100% | 3.8 | 0% |
| 12 | Llangollen Clwyd | A | 3.5 | 91% | 2.5 | 76% |
| 13 | Mortimer Berkshire | A | 2.4 | 100% | 3.8 | 0% |
| 14 | Menai Bridge Gwynedd | A | 1.8 | 100% | 2.4 | 7% |
| 15 | New Marske North Yorkshire | A− | 4.4 | 90% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 16 | Seaton Sluice Northumberland | A− | 2.2 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 17 | Rhodes Greater Manchester | B+ | 16.6 | 78% | 4.2 | 0% |
| 18 | Milton-under-Wychwood and Shipton-under-Wychwood Oxfordshire | B+ | 4.1 | 87% | 1.3 | 100% |
| 19 | Welham Green Hertfordshire | B+ | 2.5 | 93% | 4.4 | 0% |
| 20 | Almondsbury Gloucestershire | B+ | 7.9 | 77% | 4 | 0% |
| 21 | Wing Buckinghamshire | B | 2.4 | 100% | 3 | 0% |
| 22 | Newton and Blackwell Derbyshire | B | 2.6 | 91% | 3.7 | 0% |
| 23 | Camelford Cornwall | B | 2 | 100% | 1.5 | 33% |
| 24 | Newport Essex | B | 2.5 | 100% | 2.8 | 0% |
| 25 | Upper Beeding West Sussex | B | 0.6 | 83% | 3.9 | 62% |
| 26 | Denholme West Yorkshire | B | 1.6 | 100% | 3.6 | 0% |
| 27 | Weldon Northamptonshire | B | 8.2 | 100% | 1.1 | 0% |
| 28 | Newbold Verdon Leicestershire | B− | 2.3 | 100% | 2.5 | 0% |
| 29 | Bugbrooke Northamptonshire | B− | 3.7 | 80% | 3 | 0% |
| 30 | Long Hanborough Oxfordshire | B− | 1.3 | 89% | 2.7 | 18% |
| 31 | Harwell Oxfordshire | B− | 1.4 | 85% | 2.3 | 42% |
| 32 | Crumbles East Sussex | B− | 0.3 | 44% | 3.6 | 0% |
| 33 | Henley-in-Arden Warwickshire | C+ | 4.6 | 58% | 3.1 | 0% |
| 34 | Etwall Derbyshire | C+ | 2.3 | 100% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 35 | Capel St Mary Suffolk | C+ | 1.5 | 59% | 3 | 24% |
| 36 | Dymchurch Kent | C+ | 1.6 | 58% | 1 | 13% |
| 37 | Swillington West Yorkshire | C | 2.2 | 68% | 3.3 | 0% |
| 38 | Hendy and Fforest Dyfed | C | 2.1 | 100% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 39 | Sutton Courtenay Oxfordshire | C | 1.2 | 23% | 4 | 6% |
| 40 | West Chiltington West Sussex | C | 1.5 | 18% | 2.7 | 38% |
| 41 | Bottesford Leicestershire | C | 3.9 | 69% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 42 | Haddenham Cambridgeshire | C | 2.2 | 86% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 43 | Ogmore Vale Mid Glamorgan | C | 4.3 | 79% | 0.9 | 0% |
| 44 | Fenstanton Cambridgeshire | C− | 0.8 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 45 | Cullingworth West Yorkshire | C− | 1.1 | 72% | 3.9 | 0% |
| 46 | Great Leighs Essex | C− | 1.5 | 87% | 2.2 | 0% |
| 47 | Lostwithiel Cornwall | C− | 1.6 | 67% | 1.5 | 11% |
| 48 | Burnopfield County Durham | C− | 1.5 | 50% | 3.3 | 0% |
| 49 | South Petherton Somerset | C− | 1.1 | 61% | 3.4 | 0% |
| 50 | St Mary's Bay Kent | D | 0 | 0% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 51 | Cleobury Mortimer Shropshire | D | 0.8 | 64% | 2 | 2% |
| 52 | Kelsall Cheshire | D | 1 | 57% | 3.1 | 0% |
| 53 | Scotter Lincolnshire | D | 2.6 | 61% | 0.5 | 0% |
| 54 | Gobowen Shropshire | D | 1.2 | 50% | 1.2 | 2% |
| 55 | Gilberdyke East Riding of Yorkshire | D | 0.7 | 90% | 0.3 | 0% |
| 56 | Thurston Suffolk | D | 1.6 | 39% | 2.1 | 0% |
| 57 | Bampton Oxfordshire | D | 1.1 | 63% | 2 | 0% |
| 58 | Queniborough Leicestershire | D | 1.4 | 48% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 59 | Kirton in Lindsey Lincolnshire | D− | 1.7 | 57% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 60 | Boroughbridge North Yorkshire | D− | 0.4 | 60% | 1.6 | 0% |
Parks, footpaths & countryside
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is Thurston’s built-up area.
4 in 10 Thurston residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park
Each square is 1 in 100 residents: green lives within 400 m of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace).
About 1,800 people live further than that. Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees; 4 playgrounds are mapped in and around the town, about one for every 752 residents.
The Dedham Vale National Landscape is 15 mi away
Protected landscapes within 30 km, by direction and distance from the edge of the built-up area; circle size shows each one’s area. National Landscapes were called Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty until 2023.
Footpaths in and around Thurston
28 km of footpaths, bridleways and rights of way are mapped in Thurston and the kilometre around it, 2.1 km for every square kilometre (the typical UK town has 3.0).
No named walking route is mapped within 2 km of Thurston; its footpaths are on the map above.
Waymarked walks are OpenStreetMap walking routes. Public rights of way are only as complete as the map in each area.
The best walking months in Thurston: May to September
The town’s 1991–2020 averages (Met Office HadUK-Grid) and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have 12½+ hours of daylight, highs of 15 °C or more and little rain for the town.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 8.2 | 9.8 | 11.7 | 13.8 | 15.7 | 16.7 | 16.3 | 14.7 | 12.6 | 10.5 | 8.7 | 7.7 |
| High (°C) | 7 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 23 | 22 | 19 | 15 | 10 | 8 |
| Rain (mm) | 50 | 44 | 40 | 36 | 49 | 56 | 57 | 64 | 50 | 60 | 62 | 59 |
April is the driest month (36 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 23 °C). Winter days are short, about 8 hours of daylight in December, and 64 mm of rain falls in August, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 43 nights a year. The climate in Thurston →
4 playgrounds and the nearest beaches
Mapped within 2 km of the town in OpenStreetMap, against the typical UK town its size per resident. Named places are listed with directions; unnamed ones are only counted.
The nearest beaches
Thurston is inland. These are the nearest named beaches, measured from the edge of the town.
Check the water before you swim. The Environment Agency tests designated bathing waters from May to September and publishes a rating for each beach.
Every named place, with directions
Playgrounds 4
Plus 4 playgrounds without a name on the map.
The outdoors in nearby towns
The nearest towns of 1,000+ within 12 miles. Tap a town for its outdoors page.
| Town | Outdoors | Green space, ha per 1,000 | Near a park | Protected within 5 km |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thurston | D | 1.6 | 39% | 0% |
| Great Barton 2.0 mi | D− | 1.6 | 19% | 0% |
| Ixworth 3.4 mi | D− | 1.0 | 73% | 0% |
| Woolpit 4.0 mi | C− | 4.3 | 54% | 0% |
| Bury St Edmunds 4.1 mi | B− | 3.0 | 78% | 0% |
| Elmswell 4.6 mi | B | 2.5 | 100% | 0% |
| Stanton 6.0 mi | C | 2.6 | 87% | 0% |
Elmswell, 4.6 miles away, grades B, the best next door: every resident lives within 400 m of a park. Woolpit has at least twice Thurston’s green space per resident. None of the neighbours has a protected landscape within 5 km either.
Questions about the outdoors in Thurston
Is Thurston near a National Park?
The nearest protected landscape is the Dedham Vale National Landscape, 15 mi south of the town’s edge. It covers 91 km² and was designated in 1970.
What is the nearest beach to Thurston?
The Beach, 11 mi from the edge of the town, then Honolulu Beach (24 mi). Thurston itself is inland.
How many people in Thurston live near a park?
39% of residents live within 400 m, about a 5-minute walk, of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace). The typical UK town is 83%.
When is the best time of year for walking in Thurston?
May to September: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
Is Thurston good for walking?
Paths are thinner than most towns: 2.1 km of footpath and right of way per square kilometre, more than 32% of UK towns. For park space per person it beats 30% (1.6 ha per 1,000 residents).
How is the Outdoors Grade worked out?
From five measures, each placed among UK towns of 1,000 or more: public green space per resident, the share living near a park, National Park or National Landscape within 5 km, footpaths per square kilometre, and the sea within 5 km. It is a character grade and isn’t part of Thurston’s overall grade.
Where Thurston’s outdoors figures come from
- Parks and green space: Ordnance Survey OS Open Greenspace (parks and gardens, playing fields, play spaces, and their access points). Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- National Parks and National Landscapes: Natural England and Natural Resources Wales boundaries, areas and designation dates, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Footpaths, walking routes, beaches and things to do: © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License (ODbL), via Geofabrik, 16 October 2026.
- Historic parks, listed buildings and monuments: Historic England, National Heritage List for England, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Rain and temperature: Met Office HadUK-Grid 1991–2020 averages for the town; daylight calculated from its latitude.
- The sea: ONS Countries (December 2024) boundaries clipped to mean high water. Residents near a park: ONS Census 2021 output areas.
- Grade: TownRatings’ Outdoors Grade, ranked against UK towns only.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.