Free things to do in London with kids

Hackney City Farm has become a fashionable stop-off for ambling weekend marketgoers, thanks in a large part to its Italian café deli Frizzante, serving hungry Hackney folk fresh seasonal Mediterranean cooking and tasty farm breakfasts. The café may be a big draw but the rest of the farm is thriving with happy animals, a pottery studio and garden. The farm is a vital community hub with a vegetable box collection scheme for locals and courses on low-impact living and beekeeping, and is open Tuesday to Sunday, noon to 3pm. 

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These 32 acres on the Isle of Dogs make up one of London’s biggest farms. The farm - which is open from 9am to 5pm daily - is compact, with some animals just wandering about in the fields, plus a petting zoo, stables, and duck pond. Some of the best residents include a Manx Loaghtan named Juliet and a turkey who enjoys hearing ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’.

Workshops cost extra, and include a forest school and arts and crafts. Over 7s can also join the Mudchute Young Farmers team, where for £40 they can learn how to groom, feed and care for all the animals daily. 

If you've ever been on the Overground and noticed horses near Gospel Oak station, you will have had a sneak peek at Kentish Town City Farm. Tucked in and around the railway, a treasure trove of wildlife unfolds as you explore: goats romp under brick arches, sheep bleat over the whirring of nearby trains and frogs croak in a lively pond. Children are at the heart of the free-to-enter farm, with a range of weekend workshops, an under-fives activity room and a dedicated team of local young volunteers. 

If you spend Sundays munching bagels and rummaging for vintage bargains on Brick Lane, you’re missing a trick not to visit this free-entry urban oasis built in a former railway goods depot. There are many rare breeds of animals: stop by and visit characters such as Bayleaf the donkey and Bentley the goat, or pick your own veg. The farm also reaches out to local residents with projects like the Coriander Club for older Bangladeshi women, free cookery classes, a young farmers' club and gardens growing produce and herbs.

You may be surprised to find this compact farm just off the busy main Vauxhall junction, but it has managed to pack in a range of animals, duck pond, ecology garden (complete with bog, wormery and stag beetle nursery) and community allotment, which grows plants used as dyes for the spinning classes that take place on the farm. Technically, entry to the farm is free, but donations are very welcome. 

Opened by Queen Victoria in 1858, Battersea Park has since grown into an action-packed attraction for kids and grown-ups. The park's adventure playground is superb, with plenty of original and imaginatively-built features. The climbing structures, slides and high climbing nets present unusual challenges for children aged five and over, and there's a separate area for younger kids too.

The playground in Brockwell Park is a favourite, with its aerial slide, massive sandpit and sections for different age groups; nearby are the duck ponds and the paddling pool, BMX track and basketball court. 

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A small but thriving green space on the site of a former coal yard, 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.

Thomas Coram established the Foundling Hospital for abandoned children on this spot in 1747. Now the seven-acre site provides a cornucopia of facilities to delight kids, with an enormous sandpit, toddler climbing frames, see saws and swings on the east side. There’s also a city farm and an adventure playground for the older kids with a zip wire, tunnel slide and lots of climbing equipment made out of natural materials. 

Children going through the dinosaur phase always enjoy a visit to 'the monsters' - five dinosaur sculptures that lurk among the trees around the lake of the 80 hectare Crystal Palace Park. The tech savvy can download the Crystal Palace Park Dinosaurs app for an audio guide around the 700-metre monster trail.

This commemorative play area is easily the best bit of Kensington Gardens for a child. A huge pirate ship on its own beach takes centre stage (take buckets and spades). Beyond this lies the tepee camp: a trio of wigwams, each large enough to hold a sizeable tribe, and a tree-house encampment with walkways, ladders, slides and ‘tree phones’. 

The children's playground here will keep kids amused for hours. There are fast slides going into the sandpit and really tricky climbing equipment to challenge older children, plus lots for toddlers to enjoy. There's a lovely café in the middle of the park (with toilets), and a children's playground next to that, built with a £5 million Heritage Lottery Fund, that will keep kids amused for hours.

The idea behind this community project was to create a space where children can get away from screens and video games in order to learn how to build, fix, and explore. With tools to repair bikes, timber to build their own shelters, and a vegetable allotment to get grubby in, hands-on is an understatement. There’s an amazing climbing structure, as well as swings and slides, and a group of skilled staff to oversee the organised chaos. 

Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park is a four-acre wetland area with wet woodland, marsh and meadow, as well as lakes and streams. It's home to an assortment of plant life and wildlife including frogs, toads and newts, dragonflies and damselflies, and a wide variety of birds which kids can spot from specially designed hides.

The children's playground at Highbury Fields in Islington is popular, combining old-fashioned thrills (such as a circular train requiring Flintstones-style propulsion, and an excitingly long, steep slide) with more recent additions, such as the flying fox and giant, web-like climbing frames.

Highgate Wood has an excellent and well-equipped playground, complete with sandpits, climbing equipment of various levels of difficulty and a zip wire that gets very busy at peak times. Great thought has gone into providing fun and challenges for the various age groups, and there's a separate area for the under-fives to call their own.

Not to be missed for families in Holland Park is the playground, with its extensive climbing equipment, zip wire, giant see-saw and tyre swing. There’s also a fenced-in separate play area for younger children. In summer, open-air theatre and opera are staged in the park.

Just over the road from the Horniman Museum is the Horniman Triangle playground, with a massive circular sandpit, a climbing boulder with a giant spider and rope ‘web’ attached and lots of other interactive sand-play areas. There’s a café onsite too with an outdoor terrace and kids’ menus.

The Children’s Park in Mile End Park is the place to head for a colourful and imaginative space that has a rope slide, scrambling wall, climbing frame, swings and a see-saw, as well as a dedicated area for under-fives that includes a vast sandpit. New apparatus is designed to appeal to all children including those with disabilities, with a huge, bird’s nest-style swing and a ramped bridge. 

It’s not easy to make us wish we were seven years old again, but Tumbling Bay pulls it off. It’s a truly awesome-looking area, packing in swings, slides, stepping stones, sand and water play, and a big treehouse with rope walkways, as well as squashy orange hills and a climbing wall to conquer. 

Ravenscourt is less a traditional park, more a secret garden. While larger than your average private acreage, it has a refreshing local feel and is suitably off the beaten track. Kids are well catered for with a nature trail and four play areas which feature a paddling pool, a rope and post fitness circuit and an adventure playground with fort-style climbing frames, slides and a popular basket swing. 

Victoria Park is rougher around the edges than its western counterparts and thus a great expanse to kick back and let nature revitalise you. Vicky P is wonderful for youngsters too: the V&A Playground is equipped with swings etc, and the fantastically designed Pools Playground encourages creative play. And if you work up a thirst? There's the Pavilion Café, where you can grab a bite to eat before kicking back in the splendour of Pennethorne's lovely vision.