Toys Balance and movement toys Gonge
Hilltops
Five nesting plastic stepping stones of different heights for children to jump between.
- Designed by
- Jorgen Gonge and Henrik Gonge
- Made by
- Gonge
- First made
- 2002
Pictures © Gonge, from gonge.com.
Why it is renowned
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London holds a set of Hilltops and shows it in the Play Gallery of the Young V&A, in the Moving and Making section.1
The story
Jorgen Gonge had the idea on holiday, watching children jump from one tree stump to the next.1 With his son Henrik he took the company’s low River Stones as a template, kept their look and use, and made the shapes taller; they were designed between 1997 and 2001 and first made in 2002.1 The set has five hollow stones of injection-moulded polypropylene, each a rounded triangle stepped up to its peak, in red, blue, green, orange and yellow from tallest to lowest.1 A rim of thermoplastic rubber keeps them from slipping, and they nest inside one another to be put away.1 Gonge sells them as model 2121, built so they cannot tip over.2
Sources
- Hilltops, V&A Explore The Collections. collections.vam.ac.uk, read 1 October 2026.
- Hilltops. gonge.com, read 1 October 2026.
Last checked 1 October 2026, against the maker's own pages.