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  • London's peaceful bank holiday alternatives

  • By Time Out editors

    Updated: Tue Aug 11 2009

  • If you want a more relaxing bank holiday in London than the Notting Hill Carnival can provide, follow our guide for the best green spaces, wildlife, historic places to visit and more. Check individual opening hours as some venues only open one or two days over the weekend

    London's peaceful bank holiday alternatives

    Kyoto Gardens at Holland Park © Andrew Brackenbury

  • Wildlife watch

    • Photo for “London Wetland Centre”

      London Wetland Centre

      Queen Elizabeth's Walk, London, SW13 9WT

      The London Wetland Centre is a 105-acre city wildlife area of lakes, reedbeds and marshes created by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust. A three-storey tower gives excellent views of the wild areas while six other hides offer more cover for watching the wetland wildlife, especially ducks and wading birds. Facilities include a café, theatre and the Explore children's adventure centre, and the venue can be hired for private events. Free guided tours take place twice a day. A varied programme of events keeps things lively throughout the year, from summer barbecues to birdwatching walks and dedicated children's activities. Read more

    • Mudchute Park and Farm

      Pier St, E14 3HP

      London's largest city farm is set in parkland and houses 200 animals including llamas, calves, pigs, turkeys and a Pets' Corner with rabbits, ferrets and a whole lot more. The equestrian centre offers riding lessons for children and adults. There's plenty of space for kids to run about in the adjoining park if they tire of the animal enclosures. Mudchute Kitchen, the cute, family-friendly café, serves homemade cakes and interesting dishes such as roast beetroot and sheep's cheese salad. Read more

    • Camley Street Natural Park

      12 Camley St, London, NW1 0PW

      A small but thriving green space on the site of a former coalyard, Camley Street is a lovely oasis at the heart of the renovated King's Cross. London Wildlife Trust's Flagship Reserve, it hosts pond-dipping and nature-watching sessions for children and its wood-cabin visitor centre is used by the Wildlife Watch Club. Read more

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    Calming green spaces

    • Morden Hall Park

      Morden Hall Rd, Morden, Surrey, SM4 5JD

      Morden Hall Park, a beautiful former deerpark and ancient hay meadow with an extensive network of waterways and impressive avenues of trees, is perfect for family picnics. The old estate buildings house a National Trust information centre, a garden centre, and the Snuff Mill Environmental Education Centre (open on the first Sunday of each month Apr-Oct, with free family explorer packs available for loan). Read more

    • Holland Park

      Ilchester Place, London, W8 6LU

      The history of Holland Park, one of London's finest green spaces, makes an interesting tale for history buffs and horticulturalists alike. The park surrounds a Jacobean mansion, Holland House, named after its second owner, the Earl of Holland, whose wife was the first person in England to successfully grow dahlias. In the nineteenth century, Holland House became a hub of political and literary activity, visited by Disraeli and Lord Byron amongst others, but was largely destroyed by bombs during WWII. These days, dahlias are still grown within the 55 acres of Holland Park, which also houses the Japanese-style Kyoto Gardens with its koi carp and bridge at the foot of a waterfall. In summer, open-air theatre and opera are staged in the park. Read more

    • Photo for “Chelsea Physic Garden”

      Chelsea Physic Garden

      66 Royal Hospital Rd, London, SW3 4HS

      Founded in 1673, Chelsea Physic Garden is not the oldest botanical garden in England (Oxford Botanical Garden got a three-year head start), but it does contain the oldest rock garden, made from fused bricks and flint, stones from the Tower of London and Icelandic lava brought up the Thames by ship in 1772. As well as being crucial for the transportation of both plants and botanists, the garden's proximity to the Thames ensured that it enjoyed a microclimate that made it possible to grow non-native plants, including the largest outdoor fruiting olive tree in England. Today Chelsea Physic Garden is home to Britain's first garden of ethnobotany (the study of the botany of different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples). The garden is open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday and bank holiday afternoons from April to October, with late openings on Wednesdays. There's a shop where visitors can buy unusual plants and a café that serves very good homemade cakes. Read more

    • Hampstead Heath

      Highgate Road, NW3 7JR

      Wild and undulating, the grassy sprawl of Hampstead Heath makes a wonderfully untamed contrast to the manicured lawns and flowerbeds found elsewhere in the capital. The heath stretches across 791 acres of woodland, playing fields, swimming ponds and meadows of tall grass in north London from Hampstead to Highgate, and has provided the inspiration for countless films, books and poems. On hot summer days, the Hampstead Ponds are perfect for a refreshing dip, while the dizzying heights of Parliament Hill provide a popular destination for kite-fliers when the weather turns breezy. Read more


    Languid waterways

    • Jason's Canal Boat Trip

      opposite 60 Blomfield Rd, Little Venice, London, W9 2PD

      Jason's Trip navigates the picturesque route along Regent's Canal from Little Venice, through Regent's Park, on to Camden Lock and back again. The boat is more than 100 years old and the trip, which includes a live historical commentary and lasts 45min each way, has been a feature on the canal since 1951. A canal boat, the Dusk 'til Dawn, can also be booked for parties. Read more

    • Jenny Wren

      Camden Lock, 250 Camden High St, London, NW1 8QS

      Hop aboard for an hour and a half's cruise from Camden Lock, past London Zoo in Regent's Park, through the tunnel to Robert Browning's Island at Little Venice and back to Walker's Quay. A commentary is included on the cruise, and picnic lunches are available from the company's Waterside Restaurant. Onboard dining is also an option on the My Fair Lady cruising restaurant boat. Children's parties and buffet cruises can be accommodated as well. Read more


    Tranquil tours

    • Nunhead Cemetery Tour

      FREE

      Critics' Choice

      Until Jan 31 2010, Nunhead Cemetery

      Two-hour guided tour of a romantic and overgrown Victorian cemetery featuring 1,000 ivy-clad angels and mighty Victorians buried in the green heart of Peckham. Takes place on the last Sunday of every month. The cemetery is open daily (8am-4pm in winter; 7.30am-7pm in summer). Read more

    • Highgate Cemetery

      Swains Lane, London, N6 6PJ

      The final resting place of some very famous Londoners, Highgate Cemetery is a wonderfully overgrown maze of ivy-cloaked Victorian tombs and time-shattered urns. Visitors are free to wander through the East Cemetery, with its memorials to Karl Marx, George Eliot and Douglas Adams, but the most atmospheric part of the cemetery is the foliage-shrouded West Cemetery, laid out in 1839. Only accessible on an organised tour (book ahead, dress respectfully and arrive 30mins early), the shady paths wind past gloomy catacombs, grand Victorian pharaonic tombs, and the graves of notables such as Christina Rossetti, the scientist Michael Faraday and poisoned Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. The cemetery closes during burials, so call ahead. Read more

    • Photo for “Olympic Walks”

      Olympic Walks

      Critics' Choice

      Until Sat Dec 12

      Weekly walks around developing Olympic sites, taking in canals, the ‘Big Brother’ studios at Three Mills and Victorian Architecture in Abbey Mills. Booking essential (and keep an eye on the organisers' website as engineering works may sometimes mean that the meeting point has to be changed). Read more


    Rainy-day options

    • Photo for “Dennis Severs' House”

      Dennis Severs' House

      18 Folgate St, Spitalfields, London, E1 6BX

      Dennis Severs' House is a time-capsule attraction in which visitors are immersed in a unique form of theatre. The ten rooms of this original Huguenot house have been decked out to recreate snapshots of life in Spitalfields between 1724 and 1914. An escorted tour through the compelling 'still-life drama', as American creator Dennis Severs put it, takes you through the cellar, kitchen, dining room, smoking room and upstairs to the bedrooms. With hearth and candles burning, smells lingering and objects scattered apparently haphazardly, it feels as though the inhabitants have deserted the rooms only moments before. Dennis Severs' House is unsuitable for children as tours are conducted in silence. Read more

    • Photo for “Sir John Soane's Museum”

      Sir John Soane's Museum

      13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3BP

      Designed by architect Sir John Soane to house his own collection of paintings and architectural salvage, the museum is a tranquil place full of unexpected treasures, with a wealth of intriguing natural lighting effects best viewed on a bright day. A leading architect of his day, Soane is responsible for the building that housed the Bank of England (only the perimeter remains now). Much of Sir John Soane's Museum's appeal derives from the domestic setting - the Breakfast Room has a much-imitated domed ceiling, inset with convex mirrors, for instance. On the first Tuesday of each month, Sir John Soane's Museum stays opens late and some parts are lit by candlelight. During the holidays, there are drop-in children's workshops exploring the house. Read more

    • Linley Sambourne House

      18 Stafford Terrace, London, W8 7BH

      Linley Sambourne House is the Kensington house where from 1875 'Punch' cartoonist Edward Linley Sambourne lived with his wife and two children, and provides a chance to see a late-Victorian, middle-class home that has survived largely unchanged. Linley Sambourne House was passed on from one generation of the family to the next and almost all the original decoration remains intact, the rooms filled with the furniture and personal possessions the Sambournes left behind. A huge archive of diaries, papers, bills and letters also survived, providing an exceptionally detailed picture of daily life in the house. Around Christmas each year, atmospheric Victorian Twilight Encounters tours are held, which explore the seedier side of the artist's work. Read more


    Historic houses

    • Syon House and Park

      Brentford , Middx, TW8 8JF

      The Percys, the Dukes of Northumberland, were once known as 'The Kings of the North'. Their old house is on the site of a Bridgettine convent, suppressed by Henry VIII is 1534. The building was converted into a house in 1547 for the Duke of Northumberland. Remodelled by Robert Adam in 1762, Syon House has magnificent state rooms, including the Roman-inspired Great Hall, the scagliola-floored Ante Room, the Red Drawing Room and the elegant Long Gallery. Syon House's landscaped park is by Capability Brown and among the additional attractions in the 200-acre grounds are an excellent garden centre, a trout fishery, the London Aquatic Experience, an indoor adventure playground and a miniature steam railway. Read more

    • Photo for “Chiswick House”

      Chiswick House

      Burlington Lane, London, W4 2RP

      Richard Boyle, the third Earl of Burlington, designed Chiswick House, a romantic eighteenth-century villa and gardens, to evoke classical Italian themes. The house was a showpiece, used for entertaining and to display the Earl's collection of paintings, many of which remain. Next door was an older house, now demolished, where the Burlingtons actually lived although Lady Burlington did turn one room into a bedroom after the death of her husband. Read more

    • Valentines Mansion and Gardens

      Valentines Park, Emerson Rd, Essex, IG1 4XA

      Restored and reopened in March 2009, Valentines Mansion and Gardens is a Grade II*-listed country house features a recreated Victorian kitchen and Georgian room. It's set in picturesque grounds with a herb garden, rose garden, dovecote and canal. Attractions at Valentines Mansion and Gardens include art exhibitions, family Sunday activities on the first Sunday of every month and a farmers' market on the fourth Sunday of the month. Read more

    • Museum of Fulham Palace

      Bishops Avenue, London, SW6 6EA

      Fulham Palace was the episcopal retreat of the bishops of London. The present building was built in Tudor times, with later significant Georgian and Victorian additions. It would be more accurate to call it a manor house than a palace, but it gives a fine glimpse into the changing lifestyles and architecture of nearly 500 years, from the Tudor hall to the Victorian chapel; try out the echo in the courtyard. Guided tours of the palace and grounds (£5) take place at 2pm on the second and fourth Sunday and the third Tuesday of each month. There's also access to a glorious stretch of riverside walks. Best of all, the delights of the Museum of Fulham Palace still seem largely undiscovered by the majority of Londoners. Read more

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