Debunking the Myth: The World’s First Playground Slide and the Daily Mail Report
In 2012, a report by the Daily Mail claimed that the world’s first playground slide was located in Wicksteed Park, UK, and dated back to 1922. However, further analysis by play history researchers has cast doubt on this assertion.
A blog post originally published on Play-Scapes reviewed the historical timeline and referenced much earlier examples of playground slides, including those dating back to the late 19th century in the United States and Germany.
The misconception likely stems from a misinterpretation of archival photographs and a desire for a headline-worthy “first.” In reality, Wicksteed Park’s 1922 installation was one of the earliest mass-manufactured metal slides in the UK—but not the first globally.
This serves as a reminder that play equipment has a deeper, international history, and that narratives of "firsts" are often more complex than they seem.
This article draws upon the original 2012 commentary by Play-Scapes (archived), which is no longer available live but remains accessible via the Internet Archive.
The Daily Mail and BBC have published these fascinating vintage photos (copyright Geoff Robinson) of a slide installed in Wicksteed Park, Kettering, Northamptonshire in 1922. They are wonderful historical images, but are NOT the world’s first children’s slides.
The journalists and their play historian Linden Groves might want to take a look at the rooftop playground slide in New York in 1900, or the young Tsarevich’s slide at Tsarskoe Seloe (1910), or the forty-five foot long waxed wooden slide at the Smith Memorial Playground in Philadelphia which was installed in 1904 (renovated and reopened in 2005), or the c. 1905 Coney Island Slide. They might even perhaps have consulted Playground Technique and Playcraft (original copyright 1909, googlebooks has fulltext of the second, 1913 edition), which gives full instructions for constructing your own, metal (not planks of wood, like at Wicksteed…ooh the splinters!) playground slide.
