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.

London’s mighty culture mile is a wonderful place to while away a weekend morning or afternoon. Scoot along the Southbank, taking in wide-angled views of the Thames, the city and the spectacular bridges. You’ll pass the Tate Modern, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Southbank Centre, the National Theatre and the BFI along the way and it’s definitely worth checking their websites for free events and family activities if you’re heading in that direction. Borough market is rammed and expensive but also delicious, and appealing young families can snack on food samples. There’s also a couple of points where you can get down to play on a metre or two of murky river sand - mmm, delightful. In summer, look out for free performances at The Scoop and outside the National Theatre. In September, check out Totally Thames Festival listings. And in winter it’s all about the free illuminations.

Yes it’s touristy, royalist, big furry-hatted nonsense but Britain’s most recognisable quality on the world stage is its monarchy, and the pageantry that goes along with it. As you’d expect from a show that’s been practised for centuries, it’s frightfully well executed. Essentially, the old guard (the ones on duty at Buckingham Palace) hand over to the new guard coming to relieve them - but they make a jolly good show about it, with a procession, marching, dazzling uniforms and a miliary band. Google the route and times before visiting: the Victoria Memorial is a good spot if you have tinies, as there are steps to sit on and an elevated viewpoint.

Justice is transparent, which is why anyone can go and view a case at the Supreme Court from the public gallery, for free. Check out the timetable first, so you don’t get stuck with some obscure Danish corporate tax nonsense. There are a huge range of cases. Oh, and kids go free on the informative Friday guided tours as well. Sorry, adults have to pay a tenner.

Bug your local MP or Lord to arrange a free tour of both Houses of Parliament for you. You don’t have to know them personally or support them politically, as a citizen you’re entitled to visit our government HQ. Tours run Monday-Wednesday and are booked up to 6 months in advance. Oh, and they’re dead good: this is your democratic right, and it’s totally worth exercising.

Many of London's famous tall buildings charge admissions to get to their lofty viewing galleries (Shard, we're looking at you). However, there are a handful that you can get into for free. Sky Garden, Oxo Tower, The Garden At 120 and One New Change all offer - check their venue websites for free ticket booking deets. And if your legs are up to it you can always climb a hill - Primrose, Parliament, Greenwich and Shooters are faves, with Shooter's Hill well worth a trip as the lesser known option.

The UK is about as religious as a Brian Cox podcast, which means churches are criminally overlooked by its locals and visitors. London’s most famous spots - St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey - charge steep-ish entry fees to tourists, but anyone who’s prepared to go to a service can visit any place of worship for free. 

Granted it’s a rare eight-year-old who can sit through Evensong without squirming, but it’s worth trying it least once: how else can you sit beneath mighty thousand-year-old stone arches while angelic, highly-trained voices rain down the greatest hits of William Byrd and Thomas Tallis from the galleries above?

Church choirs are generally good in London, and sublimely good at lesser visited historical gems like St Bartholomew The Great or the Temple Church at Lincoln’s Inn (with rich connections to the Knights Templar, the law courts and more recently the Da Vinci Code). Or there’s the fascinating journalists’ church, St Bride’s of Fleet Street. Or it’s a free way to admire the C of E big hitters: Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s or, for catholic smells and bells, Westminster Cathedral or the fabulous Brompton Oratory.

It's the sort of undertaking that requires faith, or a lot of chutzpah. Build the largest Hindu temple outside India, in the finest materials, using master craftsmen with ancient skills rarely found outside the diaspora. Ask unpaid, untrained members of the community to give up their time to work on the site. Raise more than £10 million to finance it, with no government aid. Finish within three years. And do it all in Neasden. The great Pyramid of Giza took 100,000 workers 20 years to assemble its 2.3 million stones, but the Swaminarayan Hindu Temple, also known as Neasden Temple, can stand shoulder to shoulder with it.

Inside, the mandir is a space of almost blinding whiteness and purity. Every vertical surface is carved with stories from the scriptures (veda) and lacy motifs. A forest of pillars fills the floor and above them soars the central dome, stepping up in wedding-cake tiers towards the two-and-a-half tonne keystone which drips downwards like a glorious stone chandelier. It is a labour of love and a work of art. Anyone is welcome to look around the mandir, Hindu or heathen. The temple complex falls into two distinct parts: the marble and limestone mandir, based on ancient Shilpashastra architecture, and the conventionally built prayer hall and community centre, which used for sports clubs, yoga, football, badminton, temporary clinics and study groups.

On Saturdays, it hosts 2,000-strong prayer meetings. A souvenir shop sells henna kits, incense and photos of the deities. A permanent exhibition 'Understanding Hinduism' explains the history and philosophies of the world's oldest living religion through videos and dioramas. At November's Diwali celebrations, thousands came from all over the UK to offer their devotion, have their account books blessed (it is effectively the Hindu new year) and watch a spectacular firework display.

When it was discovered in the shell of a bombsite near Mansion House in 1954, the remains of the Roman Temple of Mithras had Londoners transfixed. It was all over the news, attracting 30,000 visitors. Then the whole thing was dismantled to make way for post-war construction and moved 100 metres away – pride of place on the roof of a car park, with very non-Roman crazy paving on the floor.

In 2009, tech and media giant Bloomberg bought up the original location to build its multi-million-pound HQ, and announced plans to ‘rebuild’ the Temple of Mithras. It delivered: inside that glossy waffle-shaped building is a full reconstruction of the original temple, part of the three-storey London Mithraeum Bloomberg Space, now open to the public. 

On the first floor, impressive artefacts discovered during the archaeological dig of the site are displayed behind glass. Among the worn leather shoes and broken pots, you’ll  find a wooden tablet from AD 57, with marks on its surface: one of the oldest handwritten documents found in the UK.

The main event is found below ground level: an atmospheric reimagining of the  temple, built with the help of mud casts and archive material.

Almost 1,800 years ago, this room was the home of the men-only cult of Mithras, a place to drink, misbehave and worship the ‘god of Mithra’, a deity known for slaying a primordial bull. It was a bit like gentlemen’s club, so it should fit right in with the financial district. Thankfully, women are welcome in the Bloomberg version.

Inside, clever audio installations that hang from the roof evoke the Roman spectres with the sound of chanting in Latin, while the light fades in and out over the dusty ‘ruins’. This is much more than some recondite academic venture: it’s the closest most of us will come to experiencing ‘Londinium’. And there’s no crazy paving in sight.

There has been a church 'in the fields' between Westminster and the City since the thirteenth century, but the current church was built in 1726 by James Gibbs, using a fusion of neoclassical and baroque styles. The parish church for Buckingham Palace (note the royal box to the left of the gallery), St Martin-in-the-Fields benefited from a £36 million, Lottery-funded refurbishment, completed in 2008. The bright interior has been fully restored, with Victorian furbelows removed and the addition of a controversial altar window that shows the Cross, stylised as if rippling on water. The crypt, its fine café and the London Brass Rubbing Centre have all been modernised. As befits the church's location in the heart of tourist London, the evening concert programme is packed with crowd-pleasers: expect lashings of Mozart and Vivaldi by candlelight. There's a longstanding tradition of free lunchtime concerts here, check out the website for regular concert listings.