Princess Kate Tours Medieval-Themed Playground, Says Prince George 'Would Be a Bit Scared' of 25-Foot Dragon

Princess Kate visited a newly-unveiled children's playground Wednesday, but she left her own little ones at home.

Kate, wearing a grey coat dress by Michael Kors (a royal rewear) and L.K. Bennett nude heels, toured the new medieval-themed playground with the park's designer. The Magic Garden was built on the same spot where King Henry VIII used to joust at Hampton Court Palace.

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It would have been the perfect place to bring Prince George for a playful morning at the Tudor estate, but she admitted he would be frightened of the 25-foot plastic dragon that some of the school children were playing on.

Elodie and Olivia, both 8, from St. John the Baptist Church of England Junior School in nearby Hampton Wick, were among the school children sitting on top of the model dragon.

Elodie told PEOPLE, "She asked us what lessons we were missing and how school is. She said George would love the dragon, but he would be a bit scared."

Asked if Kate seemed like a princess, Olivia added, "It was very exciting. "She looked like a very rich lady."

Kate also stopped to chat with Natalie O'Rourke, 40, from Teddington, who was playing in the sandpit with her son Woody, 3. O'Rourke suggested the Duchess should have brought her children.

"She said, 'George would have loved it,' and said that she wished she had brought him now!" she told PEOPLE. "I guess she would have had to worry about him if she had."

"She's so charming and so beautiful," O'Rourke added. "My son has Down syndrome. She was talking to him and he shook her hand, which was really cool."

O'Rourke was invited to attend the event by a local center for kids with special needs, Stanley Children's Centre, and she gave Kate a handmade necklace designed by a friend. "She was really grateful," she said.

The new playground, which Kate was officially opening, took six years to build, using 17,000 bulbs and 3,000 shrubs.

The event marked the first of of three outings for Kate on Wednesday. She followed up her visit to Hampton Court with a lunch with her newest patronage, the mental health charity the Anna Freud Centre.

Later, Kate is set to see some of the photographs from her Vogue magazine shoot hung at the National Portrait Gallery in London as part of its Vogue 100: A Century of Style exhibition.