10 of London's Best Free Things to do with Kids

6. Spot a deer at Richmond Park

London contains many parks. It contains only one Richmond Park, and the difference is significant. Two thousand five hundred acres of ancient woodland and open grassland — the largest of the Royal Parks — where herds of red and fallow deer have roamed freely since Charles I enclosed the land in 1637. In summer they shelter in the bracken. In autumn the stags rut noisily along the ridges. There is no other place in any major city where you can walk freely among genuinely wild animals. Take a packed lunch, arrive early and walk toward Sidmouth Wood.

Top tip: the Isabella Plantation inside the park is a woodland garden at its most spectacular in late April, but beautiful in summer too. Free to enter and quieter than the open parkland.

7. Butterfly House at the Horniman Museum

Most people have never heard of the Horniman Museum. Those who have tend to return repeatedly. Set on a hill in Forest Hill with exceptional views across London, the main museum — housing one of the world's great natural history collections, an extensive aquarium and the famous overstuffed walrus — is completely free. The butterfly house (small additional charge, around £5) is one of the most extraordinary enclosed spaces in London: hundreds of tropical butterflies flying freely around and sometimes landing on you. Children find it genuinely magical.

Top tip: the outdoor animal enclosure, the sound collection and the anthropology galleries are all free and consistently excellent — budget a full half-day.

8. The Young V&A

The museum formerly known as the V&A Museum of Childhood was comprehensively redesigned and reopened as the Young V&A in 2023, and it is now one of the finest free children's museums anywhere in the world. Three floors in a beautiful Victorian building in Bethnal Green: interactive galleries, an extraordinary toy collection spanning centuries, a design studio, dressing-up, and spaces genuinely designed for children rather than adults imagining what children might like. The play areas are exceptional. The café is decent. Allow at least three hours. 

Top tip: it's well off the central London tourist circuit, which means it's quieter than it deserves to be. Take the Overground to Cambridge Heath — it's a two-minute walk.

9. Visit Diagon Alley from Harry Potter

The Warner Bros. Studio Tour has a ticket price. London's actual Harry Potter filming locations don't. Leadenhall Market in the City — a soaring Victorian covered market — was used as the entrance to Diagon Alley in the first film and looks almost unchanged. Platform 9¾ at King's Cross Station is free to visit, with a luggage trolley disappearing into the wall and a small queue of people taking photographs. Neither requires a booking or a penny. For a longer trail, the website mugglenet.com lists every London filming location with directions.

Top tip: Leadenhall Market is quieter and more atmospheric on weekend mornings before the lunch crowd arrives. The market traders are also considerably more friendly to small visitors than Gringotts ever was.

10. Go Street Art Spotting in Brick Lane 

Brick Lane and the streets around it make up one of the world's great outdoor galleries — a constantly changing collection of murals, paste-ups, stencils and large-scale commissions from artists who have come here to be seen. Banksy made his reputation in these streets. Thierry Noir, D*Face, ROA and dozens of others followed. The work changes regularly: something new appears most weeks, and something old is painted over. For children it is both a genuine art education and an excellent excuse to explore a neighbourhood that also happens to contain some of London's best bagels.

Need ideas for the summer holidays?

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