New Castle Commons

January 23, 2024

Great Island Commons, New Castle, New Hampshire

New Castle, NH is one of my favorite towns in New Hampshire! My husband and I rented an apartment downtown New Castle when we first started dating and moved out to the coast and we fell in love with it! The streets are so quaint and the houses are so old, but all so beautifully maintained that it feels very picturesque walking around. There’s a new bakery downtown New Castle that is a great stop before heading to the playground!

Stop and get coffee, crullers or lunch before the beach

The cute bakery located downtown New Castle is called The Islander Cafe and make sure to definitely check them out! A coffee shop downtown Kittery, Lil’s, recently became new owners of The Islander Cafe so they now sell crullers and you can order online ahead of time which my kids love! There’s only about 3 parking spots in front of the cafe but there’s easy street parking and a lot of spots right across the street behind the post office. I almost always park behind the post office and go into The Islander Cafe. It is just much easier getting the kids out of the car with more space.

Parking and Fees

After getting coffee and food head over to New Castle Commons. You can drive in for free in the off season but from May 18th through Columbus Day/Indigenous People’s Day the cost to enter is $15 per vehicle. Once you’re in you’ll see the playground and grassy area right away. You have to take a right and go around the park and playground. There’s parking spots along the water before you loop back to the larger parking lot next to the bathrooms and playground.

Playground

The playground at New Castle used to be my favorite! It felt very safe for my little ones to run around on and had easy access to the bathrooms. But since the summer of 2024, a new playground has taken its place. There are still two structures, one for smaller kids and a VERY tall one for kids 6-12. My kids are now 7, 5 and 3 and love to play together. Try telling my 3 and 5 year old that they aren’t allowed to play on the large structure with my older one… yeah right! There’s a sign next to the large structure warning of adult supervision with this playground and I’m sorry, but I’m not the type of person to be climbing on the playground with my kids. Of course I will supervise! But from the ground!

There’s one slide on the tall structure that can only be accessed by climbing ropes. My 3 year old (he was 2 1/2 at the time) thought he could do it and he ended up slipping. He caught himself and was holding on by his hands and my oldest was at the top and helped him up. It was like a slow motion train wreck watching from the ground because there was no way I could’ve run up there to help him fast enough.

Long story short, if you have multiple kids at different ages and different climbing abilities, I would definitely avoid this playground. ESPECIALLY if it’s crowded and there are a lot of kids. We’ve been to it twice, before the park opened, and we were the only ones there so it was manageable. I also went with my husband these 2 times and I needed that second adult. I don’t like to meet friends here anymore who have little kids because I know it will be way too stressful.

Bathrooms

The bathrooms are right next to the playground, parking lot and entrance to the beach. They are open seasonally when the park is open. So make sure you bring a small potty for the kids because this is a great spot for hours of fun!

Beach and Lighthouse Views

The New Castle beach is small, but easy to access and there’s some good climbing rocks here as well. Also a good beach for walking and collecting some sea glass. The sand here is really soft and not very rocky. There’s also not usually much seaweed at this beach compared to right across the water at Fort Foster or Seapoint Beach. Walking the beach and enjoying the lighthouse views are the best! From the beach and park you can see two lighthouses, Whaleback Lighthouse and Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse. Also at times we’ve caught big cargo ships passing by to enter the Piscataqua River and the kids love it! It is such an easy beach to access, very kid friendly and a good spot to start if you are not comfortable bringing your kids to the beach!

Grills for picnics

If you want a full day of fun I highly recommend using the charcoal grills and grilling up some dinner or lunch! This is not something I can do by myself as it requires a lot of packing. You have to bring your own charcoal, lighter and lighter fluid. We love doing cookouts at Fort Foster with friends, my husband grills while I play at the beach with the kids or climb on the rocks. My in-laws have taken the kids here for a picnic dinner in the summer but we always just do a picnic at Fort Foster as the grills are the same.