45 free things to do in London, from a Roman temple to Victorian dinosaurs fresh out of restoration

At first glance, London can be a wallet-destroying city to spend time in. It doesn’t have to be that way. Looking to explore the city without the expense? This insider’s guide walks you through the best free things to do in London.

Exploring London for free? First up, is it even possible? Secondly, what is there to do?

Answer: yes. And we know how.

We’ve put together this bumper list of free things in London, cool places to visit and things to do that won’t cost you a single penny. Knock yourself out.

Free things to do in London

Changing of the Guard

Everyone should go and see the pomp and circumstance of the Changing of the Guard ceremony at least once, whether you’re a Londoner or only in town for a couple of days, this is one of the top free tourist attractions in London for good reason. A lot of them are also hidden gems most Londoners have never found.

The Changing of the Guard is the procession that takes place when the King’s Guard finishes its watch and hands over to the new guard, complete with brass bands, marching and a hell of a lot of tradition.

You can see the ceremony in a couple of places, but we recommend Buckingham Palace, it’s easily the most impressive location. It doesn’t run daily in winter, so check the schedule before you go.

London Mithraeum

The Mithraeum is a genuinely bizarre, brilliant find, a Roman temple dedicated to the mysterious figure of Mithras, whose cult-like followers were shrouded in secrecy, reconstructed with haze, chanting and light beneath Bloomberg’s City offices.

Entirely free, with a rotating contemporary art exhibition upstairs at Bloomberg SPACE too, currently Anne Ryan’s Folkmoot, running into January 2027.

Barbican Conservatory

The Barbican is one of London’s best cultural venues, set in a series of striking Brutalist buildings near Smithfield, and for the most part you need to pay to make the most of the programme of theatres, films and concerts on offer.

The Barbican Conservatory is the exception, a gorgeous space packed with tropical plants, cacti and flowers on the third floor of the building, and it’s totally free. Check the current schedule before you go, and whether pre-booking is required.

Street art in Shoreditch

London’s position as a vibrant street art hub is well earned. If talented artists are going to use the city as a canvas, we’re here for it.

Shoreditch boasts one of London’s most established street art scenes, you can barely turn a corner without coming across a piece, or five, from some of the biggest international street artists.

Columbia Road Flower Market

Columbia Road Market is one of London’s more unusual markets. Every Sunday, Columbia Road bursts into bloom with a long-established flower market that’s really rather delightful.

Buying something isn’t free, but you’re more than welcome to turn up and have a meander, and imagine what life would be like if you lived around the corner and could buy armfuls of blooms every week.

Oxo Tower viewing platform

For a city with such a dramatic skyline, it can be tough to get a good look at it without paying through the nose. Sure, it’s cool that you can see London from up high at places like The View from the Shard, but if you don’t have upwards of £28 to drop on a ticket, it’s not always worth it.

That’s where the Oxo Tower comes in, a genuinely good place to see London for free that barely anyone knows about, right on the 8th floor and right next to the river.

British Museum

One of the things that really sets London apart is the number of museums you can visit for free.

Can’t decide which to pick? Go for the British Museum. It’s pretty much unrivalled for the sheer scope of curios, artworks and artefacts on display. Wear comfortable shoes.

Sky Garden

Head to Sky Garden, the gorgeous three-floor atrium at the top of the Walkie Talkie building, for greenery and some seriously good views of central London.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to visit. The right way finds you breezing up in the lift to a near-empty garden. The wrong way finds you queuing for hours. We’ve written a step-by-step guide to visiting without the fuss, worth reading before you plan your trip. Free, but book ahead.

Leadenhall Market

Tucked into the heart of The City, Leadenhall Market is one of our favourite places in the capital to explore for free. The Victorian building is home to restaurants, bars and independent shops, and you might recognise a few spots from the Harry Potter series.

God’s Own Junkyard

Walthamstow’s neon collection might not be a secret anymore thanks to its grammable looks, but it’s still one of the coolest free spots in town.

The warehouse is the life’s work of the late Chris Bracey, the Neon Man, who created signs for the likes of Tim Burton. Easily an hour well spent, and there’s a cafe on site if you want to make an afternoon of it.

Take a free walking tour

For such a big place, London is a surprisingly walkable city, one you can easily explore on a self-guided walking tour.

But it’s not quite the same as having a knowledgeable, funny guide showing you the hidden spots. There are plenty of free walking tours to choose from, East London food tours to Jack the Ripper trails among them. Worth knowing: these market themselves as free but actually run on a pay-what-you-want basis, tip your guide if they’ve earned it.

Free tours at Somerset House

Somerset House is the last of the grand palaces that once lined the Thames in central London, striking neoclassical architecture around an equally impressive quad.

Cool to poke around on your own, but we’d recommend booking one of Somerset House’s free tours to dig into the palace’s history, it belonged to Queen Henrietta, whose husband Charles I was executed in the English Revolution. Tickets are released on the day and go fast.

Walk under the Thames on the Greenwich Foot Tunnel

Everyone knows London’s bridges, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, the wobbly Millennium Bridge, but did you know about the Greenwich Foot Tunnel?

Opened in 1902 and still used by well over a million people a year, it’s 370 metres of tunnel connecting one side of the Thames to the other. Hop off at Island Gardens and use it to reach gorgeous Greenwich.

Visit the public galleries in the Houses of Parliament

Whatever you think of today’s politics, there’s no denying it’s rarely boring. Watch the action first hand at the public galleries in the Houses of Parliament, free to UK residents and overseas visitors alike.

Most of the time you can just turn up, but you’ll need to book ahead for Prime Minister’s Questions or Ministerial Question Time.

Wander around Borough Market

Borough Market is one of London’s best-known food markets, and for good reason, the quality and range of fresh produce and street food is ridiculously high.

Buying it isn’t free, but so much of the experience is about having a mooch, soaking up the atmosphere and grabbing the occasional sample.

Leake Street graffiti tunnel

Leake Street is London’s largest legal graffiti wall, transformed from a dingy railway tunnel by Banksy’s Cans Festival in 2008. There’s always something new going up, and you’ll almost certainly catch an artist at work.

The Chapel of St Peter and St Paul, Old Royal Naval College

Give credit where it’s due, sometimes a space is just outrageously over the top in the best way, and that’s the Chapel of St Peter and St Paul at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

The neoclassical decor is pure drama, marble floor, carved and gilded ceiling, one of the most distinctive 18th-century interiors in the city. Combine it with the nearby Queen’s House or National Maritime Museum, both also free, for a perfect day in Greenwich.

Fulham Palace

Fulham Palace has stood since 704, so it’s seen plenty of intrigue over the years, from sheltering Catherine of Aragon under Henry VII to doubling as a site of interrogation under Mary I.

Both the house and gardens are free to visit and genuinely beautiful, particularly in summer. Guided history and garden tours run periodically for a small fee if you want to go deeper.

Brompton Cemetery

While you have to pay to visit London’s most famous cemetery, Highgate, Brompton is free and every bit as striking, beautifully carved mausoleums and a domed chapel modelled on St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Hunt out the graves of famous figures buried here, suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst among them. The Friends of Brompton Cemetery also run a free open day each September with tours and activities.

Kenwood House

An English Heritage property with a genuinely world-class interior, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Gainsborough all feature, Kenwood House is one of the few grand houses in London you can visit without paying a penny.

Once you’ve explored inside, take time to wander the 112 acres of landscaped grounds, which blend straight into Hampstead Heath.

House of MinaLima

There are plenty of brilliant Harry Potter spots in London (we’ve written a self-guided tour covering the best of them), but the House of MinaLima is something special.

Founded by Eduardo Lima and Miraphora Mina, the graphic designers behind the films’ iconic props, the Soho shop displays original posters and designs, wanted posters of Azkaban prisoners among them. It’s also a shop, easy to spend more than you planned.

Photographers’ Gallery Soho

The Photographers’ Gallery is one of London’s most intriguing galleries, an ever-changing display of talented photographers past and present.

Better still, it runs free Thursday and Friday Lates, 6pm to 8pm, when the whole gallery opens up without a ticket.

The Petrie Museum

Not many people know about the Petrie Museum, a quirky collection of Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology tucked into UCL’s Bloomsbury campus.

The museum is small but the collection is mighty, over 80,000 objects, including the world’s oldest surviving dress. One of the best free finds in the city.

Natural History Museum

Pretty much all of the capital’s biggest galleries and museums are free, and the Natural History Museum is a must, whatever number of times you decide to go back.

The natural history, botanical, entomological and mineralogical collections are genuinely one of the best of their kind worldwide.

Tate Britain

London isn’t short of free art galleries, but Tate Britain is one of the best. The building alone is worth the trip, a grand central atrium that’s guaranteed to make your jaw drop.

Gainsborough, Constable, Moore and Hepworth are all here, alongside a whole wing dedicated to Turner and a good look at William Blake. Allow at least a couple of hours.

Design Museum

What makes good design? That’s the question sitting at the heart of the Design Museum, which has established itself as a temple to good design both in its exhibits and its architecture, particularly since its move to the edge of Holland Park.

It shines a genuinely good spotlight on the design we take for granted in daily life. This autumn, that includes The Nue Black Aesthetic, a major exhibition on contemporary Black design across fashion, furniture and architecture.

Watch films at the BFI Mediatheque

Central London is expensive, right? Not always. The BFI Mediatheque at BFI Southbank has private viewing booths where you can work through the BFI’s extensive film and TV archive, entirely free.

Pick your programme, put on your headphones, and settle in.

Attend a lecture at Gresham College

Widen your horizons at one of Gresham College‘s free public lectures. Subjects vary wildly but are always delivered by leading experts in their field and are genuinely fascinating, a better use of an evening than another night in front of the telly.

Lunchtime concerts at St Martin-in-the-Fields

St Martin-in-the-Fields sits at the corner of Trafalgar Square, more than an imposing building, it’s one of the city’s musical hubs.

A constant stream of concerts runs through the church, including free lunchtime concerts on weekdays. Lunch and a bit of classical music, genuinely hard to beat.

See the deer in Richmond Park

Richmond is a little way out of the centre, but there’s no denying it’s one of the prettiest parks in London. Deer roam freely through the grounds, perfect for a long walk with a genuine sense of countryside despite being in the city.

Head to the Royal Parks

London is filled with Royal Parks, all free to explore. Our favourites are Regent’s and Greenwich, though all are brilliant for a few hours immersed in nature.

St Dunstan in the East

Despite being a beautiful London garden, St Dunstan in the East flies under most people’s radar. Set in the ruins of a bombed-out church, it’s one of our favourite spots near Tower Hill. There are even palm trees.

See the dinosaurs of Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace dinosaurs have just come through a full restoration, declared complete in July 2026, repainted in their original Victorian colours and formally removed from Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register. If it’s been a while, this is a genuinely good time to go back.

Hampstead Heath

Hampstead Heath is one of London’s most popular walking spots, and for good reason, few places in the city feel this leafy and wild. Don’t miss the views from Hampstead Pergola.

Walk the Thames Path

Walking the Thames Path is one of the best ways to take in London’s top landmarks in one go. The full route runs 80 miles, but the middle stretch from Greenwich to the South Bank can be tackled in an afternoon, taking in Greenwich Park, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London and the Millennium Bridge.

Walk the waterways in Little Venice

Little Venice sits between the Grand Union Canal and Regent’s Canal, filled with cute cafes, colourful boats and even a puppet theatre barge. A genuine bright spot on even the greyest London day.

Thames Barrier Park

Behind the Royal Docks in Newham, Thames Barrier Park is a pretty riverside spot with basketball courts and a secluded pavilion, with views across to the Thames Barrier itself. Bring a picnic and spend an hour or two.

Explore London’s forests and woodlands

London is technically a forest, officially. It’s no wonder the capital is packed with brilliant woodland walks, we love Selsdon Wood Nature Reserve. Read our full guide to London’s woodland walks.

Brixton Windmill

Did you know there’s a fully working windmill in the heart of one of South London’s most multicultural neighbourhoods? Brixton Windmill still mills flour today, sold at select South London outlets, and the mill itself becomes apparent only once you’re almost on top of it. Free to visit; guided tours are pre-booked and fill up fast.

The Kyoto Garden

Holland Park is one of London’s more overlooked neighbourhoods, and within it sits one of the city’s most beautifully designed gardens. The Kyoto Garden opened in 1991, a gift from the city of Kyoto marking Anglo-Japanese friendship, complete with a waterfall, koi pond, stone lanterns and the occasional resident peacock.

A second Japanese garden sits nearby too, the Fukushima Memorial Garden, opened in 2012 in gratitude for British support after the 2011 disaster.

William Morris Gallery

Located in Walthamstow, and easy to combine with a visit to God’s Own Junkyard for a properly budget day out, the William Morris Gallery tells the story of one of Britain’s greatest designers and most committed socialists.

Worth knowing before you go: the gallery is currently closed for renovation as part of a 2026 Renewal Project, check their website for the latest before planning a visit.

Go birdwatching

London is genuinely rife with spots to see rare birds, red kites and buzzards over Hampstead Heath, kingfishers at Walthamstow Wetlands, warblers along the River Lea, and a huge variety at Barnes’s London Wetland Centre. Pack binoculars and a decent pair of boots.

Visit Shad Thames

One of the least-known spots to get your camera out is Shad Thames, full of converted Victorian warehouses, overhead bridges and gantries spanning cobbled walkways, a genuine step back to how London used to look. It sits just south of the Thames between London Bridge and Rotherhithe, and it’s easy to picture the area still in use as working docks well into the 1970s.

Street art in Penge

South of the river in zone 4 sits one of London’s most surprising street art scenes, one that genuinely rivals Shoreditch’s for density of work. Penge’s murals grew from a grassroots blog into SprayExhibition20, an annual festival that’s brought artists including Zabou, Mr Cenz and Dan Kitchener to paint the town’s walls, shutters and even an old multi-storey car park turned rooftop gallery.

Start at either Penge East or Penge West station and you’ll be within a few minutes of your first mural. We’ve written a full self-guided route.

Grant Museum of Zoology

The lesser-known of UCL’s cluster of small, free museums, alongside the Petrie and the Institute of Making, the Grant Museum of Zoology is the only remaining university zoological museum in London.

Expect walls of specimen jars, extinct and endangered species, and the genuinely mesmerising Micrarium, a tiny room lined with backlit slides of microscopic creatures. Founded in 1828, it pairs naturally with a visit to the Petrie just around the corner.

The London x London Take: the free museums cluster around Bloomsbury (British Museum, Petrie, Grant Museum) and South Kensington (Natural History, Design Museum) are the two obvious bases for a proper free day out, but it’s the smaller, stranger finds, the Mithraeum, St Dunstan in the East, Shad Thames, that make London’s free offering genuinely unmatched rather than just cheap.

Need to know

• Price: Free throughout, though a handful of entries (guided tours at Fulham Palace and Somerset House) now run on a small paid-extra basis, noted individually above
• Booking: Several entries require advance booking even though they’re free, Sky Garden and the Barbican Conservatory among them, check each venue’s own site before visiting

Free London: map