Venues220 pages
London venues, A to Z
Every venue we list, from the Barbican Conservatory to Wilton's Music Hall, with what is on at each.
A venue page collects everything we have listed at that address, past the door policy and the last train. Forty of them so far, and the list grows with the listings.
Where a venue has closed, its page says so and when, rather than quietly disappearing. We would rather record it than pretend it was never there.
Every venue
Most listings first-
110 listed
Crazy Coqs
An art deco room in the basement of Brasserie Zedel, off Piccadilly Circus, and the closest London has to a proper supper club stage. Cabaret, song,… -
108 listed
The 100 Club
A basement under Oxford Street that has been putting on live music since the 1940s, and the through line of its bill is the point: Muddy… -
107 listed
Electric Ballroom
Camden High Street, opposite the tube, and part of the reason Camden means what it means. It runs as a live room and as a club… -
105 listed
Museum of Comedy
The Museum of Comedy, in the Undercroft of St George's Church on Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2SR: new stand-up hours and musical comedy on show nights. -
96 listed
Phoenix Arts Club
A basement under the Phoenix Theatre that has been running for more than thirty five years, originally as a place for theatre people to drink after… -
92 listed
City Comedy Club
A basement room under Trapeze Bar on Great Eastern Street, five minutes from Old Street and eight from Liverpool Street. Shows run Wednesday to Sunday, most… -
92 listed
Ronnie Scott's
Open on Frith Street since 1959 and still the room every visiting jazz musician wants to play. Two things happen most nights: the main show, seated… -
80 listed
JK Comedy Club Covent Garden
Two hundred seats at Arboretum on Charing Cross Road, four minutes from Leicester Square, and the biggest room in the group by some distance. Everything here… -
63 listed
EartH Hackney
A 1930s cinema on Stoke Newington Road, left deliberately unrestored, running as a social enterprise across three rooms: the Theatre, the Hall and the Kitchen. It… -
62 listed
Hen & Chickens Theatre
The theatre and bar at 109 St Paul's Road, London N1 2NA: one-person plays, dark comedy and films shown while still in progress. -
54 listed
JK Comedy Club Leicester Square
Fifty one seats in the Grosvenor Casino on Coventry Street, a minute from Piccadilly Circus. The smallest room JK runs and the one that stacks shows:… -
49 listed
The Comedy Store
Off Leicester Square on Oxendon Street and open since 1979, which makes it the room most people mean by a London comedy club. The week has… -
47 listed
Downstairs at the King's Head
The comedy club at 2 Crouch End Hill, London N8 8AA: try-out nights with sixteen acts, doors 8pm and on stage 8.30pm, and a Sunday afternoon… -
46 listed
JK Comedy Club Soho
Sixty seats upstairs at The Spice of Life on Moor Street, two minutes from Leicester Square station and the smallest of the West End rooms JK… -
46 listed
Alexandra Palace
The people's palace on the hill, with the whole city below it. A 10,000-capacity hall for the big gigs, a theatre, an ice rink from November… -
44 listed
JK Comedy Club Piccadilly Circus
Fifty seats at BOX Piccadilly on Shaftesbury Avenue, a minute from Piccadilly Circus and about as central as a comedy room gets in London. Tuesday, Friday,… -
44 listed
The Social
A basement bar off Oxford Street, opened by Heavenly in 1999 and still putting something on most nights: new bands upstairs and downstairs, DJ nights that… -
41 listed
The Clapham Grand
A 1900 variety theatre by Clapham Junction, now a club and live room that keeps its balconies. It publishes an exact finish time on every show,… -
40 listed
Woolwich Works
An arts centre in the Grade II listed former munitions buildings of the Royal Arsenal, running a lot of free and weekly things alongside the ticketed… -
30 listed
Scala
A former cinema on Pentonville Road, opposite King's Cross, running live music, club nights and one-off events across three floors. The programme takes in rock, metal,… -
30 listed
Angel Comedy at the Camden Head
A pub room in Islington that puts on free comedy seven nights a week, which is close to unique in London and the reason the club… -
28 listed
Underbelly Boulevard Soho
A three room house on Walker's Court, opened in 2023 on the site where the Boulevard Theatre stood next door to Raymond's Revuebar. Cabaret and variety… -
26 listed
Royal Vauxhall Tavern
The oldest surviving queer venue in London and the first building in the country listed for its LGBTQ+ history. Sunday cabaret is the institution, David Hoyle… -
23 listed
Hyde Park
Three hundred and fifty acres from Marble Arch to Kensington, with the Serpentine cutting across the middle. Swimming and boating in summer, Speakers' Corner on Sunday… -
18 listed
Tate Modern
Bankside power station turned over to modern art in 2000, and still recognisably a power station: the Turbine Hall is the old machine floor and takes… -
17 listed
The Bill Murray
Angel Comedy's ticketed room, round the corner from the Camden Head on Queen's Head Street. Where the free pub show is a bill of whoever is… -
16 listed
The O2
The arena under the tent on the Greenwich peninsula, at Peninsula Square SE10 0DX, with the smaller indigo at The O2 beside it and a street… -
16 listed
Lyric Hammersmith
A Victorian auditorium lifted whole out of the original building and dropped inside a modern shell in the 1970s, so you climb through a concrete foyer… -
16 listed
The Top Secret Comedy Club
A basement on Drury Lane, with a second room on Kingsway, and the cheapest way into professional stand up in the West End. Most shows are… -
16 listed
Backyard Comedy Club
A purpose built comedy room on Cambridge Heath Road in Bethnal Green, which is rarer than it sounds: most London comedy happens in a pub function… -
15 listed
Hackney Empire
A Frank Matcham music hall from 1901 on Mare Street, gilded and steep and restored rather than modernised. Comedy, variety, opera and a pantomime with a… -
15 listed
Sadler's Wells
The country's main house for dance, on the same Islington site since 1683 though the current building is from 1998. Contemporary, hip hop, flamenco and ballet… -
13 listed
The Frontline Club
A members' club for foreign correspondents on Norfolk Place, two minutes from Paddington station, which opens its downstairs room to the public most weeknights for a… -
13 listed
The Other Palace
A musicals house behind Victoria station with two rooms, the Main House and a small Studio, and a programme that leans towards new work, try-outs and… -
13 listed
Wilton's Music Hall
The oldest surviving grand music hall in the world, down Graces Alley off Cable Street, and left deliberately unrestored so the walls still look their age.… -
12 listed
MOTH Club
A working men's club in Hackney with a gold tinsel stage, now one of the better small rooms in London for new bands, and a club… -
12 listed
St Martin-in-the-Fields
The church on the north east corner of Trafalgar Square, and the only one in London that doubles as a concert hall in daily use. Free… -
12 listed
Up The Creek
Greenwich, on Creek Road, and a proper weekend club rather than a room a pub lends out. It runs Thursday to Sunday and the curtain moves… -
11 listed
Battersea Arts Centre
The old Battersea town hall, gutted by fire in 2015 and rebuilt with the scorched brickwork left visible, which turned out to be the best thing… -
11 listed
Canary Wharf
The estate east of the Isle of Dogs runs its own public programme across its squares and docks, and most of it is free and outdoors:… -
9 listed
Arcola Theatre
A theatre off Dalston Junction with two studios and a bar, known for staging plays other theatres think too difficult and for keeping its ticket prices… -
9 listed
Young Vic
A producing theatre on The Cut with a big Main House and a smaller room, the Maria. It casts and programmes more adventurously than most of… -
8 listed
Bush Theatre
A new writing theatre in Shepherd's Bush with two rooms: the Holloway Theatre, which is the main space, and a smaller Studio. Almost everything here is… -
8 listed
Royal Court Theatre
The writers' theatre, on Sloane Square since 1888 and the place where Look Back in Anger landed in 1956. Two spaces: the main house downstairs and… -
7 listed
The National Gallery
The national collection of Western European painting, free to walk into, on the north side of Trafalgar Square. Van Eyck, Velazquez, Turner and the Sunflowers are… -
7 listed
Blackheath
The heath above Greenwich, and the site of the November firework display that returned after a six-year gap. Free to stand on it, which makes it… -
7 listed
Jazz Cafe
A squared off hall on Parkway in Camden with a balcony running round it, booking far wider than the name suggests: soul, hip hop, Afrobeat and… -
7 listed
Brick Lane
The spine of the East End's Bangladeshi quarter, curry houses at the southern end and vintage shops at the northern, with the Old Truman Brewery in… -
6 listed
Kiln Theatre
A producing theatre on Kilburn High Road, known as the Tricycle for most of its life and renamed in 2018. It runs long runs rather than… -
5 listed
Maltby Street
A weekend food market strung along the Ropewalk, a narrow lane under the railway arches between Bermondsey and Tower Bridge. Smaller and less orderly than Borough,… -
5 listed
Royal Festival Hall
The Southbank Centre's main hall, with free live music in the Clore Ballroom most evenings and no ticket needed. The bar upstairs has the river view… -
5 listed
Roundhouse
The Chalk Farm engine shed, and a venue that programmes gigs and electronic nights alongside a large amount of work with people aged 11 to 30,… -
5 listed
Broadway Market
A Saturday street market between London Fields and the Regent's Canal, food stalls at the Hackney end and the rest of the street given over to… -
5 listed
Columbia Road
The flower market runs on Sunday mornings only, and the street is a normal East End terrace for the rest of the week. Growers shout prices… -
5 listed
Kew Gardens
Three hundred acres of botanic garden on the Thames at Richmond, and a working research institution rather than a park. The Palm House and Temperate House… -
5 listed
Strawberry Hill House
Horace Walpole's gothic villa in Twickenham, begun in 1749 and largely responsible for the taste it started. He built it as a series of effects rather… -
5 listed
Hampstead Theatre
A new writing theatre in Swiss Cottage with two rooms, the Main Stage and Hampstead Downstairs. Most of what it stages is a premiere, and the… -
4 listed
Saatchi Gallery
A large contemporary gallery in the Duke of York's headquarters off the King's Road, fifteen white rooms over three floors. Much of the programme is free.… -
4 listed
Greenwich Market
The covered market in the middle of old Greenwich, crafts and food under a glass roof. Two minutes from the Cutty Sark and the foot of… -
4 listed
V&A
The national collection of art, design and performance, free to enter, and large enough that nobody sees it in one visit. Cast Courts, the jewellery gallery… -
4 listed
Granary Square
The square behind King's Cross station, in front of Central Saint Martins, with a thousand fountains set flush into the paving that children run through all… -
4 listed
Holy Cross Church
The Anglo-Catholic church at 98 Cromer Street, WC1H 8JU, consecrated in 1888 and grade II listed, a few minutes south of King's Cross. Its crypt has… -
4 listed
Sir John Soane's Museum
The architect's own house on Lincoln's Inn Fields, kept exactly as he left it in 1837 and free to walk into. Three storeys crammed with casts,… -
4 listed
Wellcome Collection
Free, on Euston Road, and built around Henry Wellcome's collection of objects about what it is to be human: medical, anthropological and frequently unsettling. The exhibitions… -
4 listed
White Cube Bermondsey
Fifty thousand square feet of converted 1970s warehouse on Bermondsey Street, and the largest commercial gallery space in Europe when it opened. Free to walk into,… -
4 listed
Marble Hill
A white Palladian villa in its own park by the Thames at Twickenham, built in the 1720s for George II's mistress and restored in 2022. The… -
4 listed
Strand on the Green
A riverside terrace of eighteenth century houses between Kew Bridge and Chiswick, with three pubs on the towpath and no road behind them. The path floods… -
4 listed
Science Museum
Free to enter, on Exhibition Road with the Natural History Museum next door. Stephenson's Rocket, the Apollo 10 command module and a working section of Babbage's… -
4 listed
Trafalgar Square
The square is used for things as much as looked at: Diwali, Chinese New Year, St Patrick's Day, the Christmas tree Norway sends every year. The… -
3 listed
Eventim Apollo
The old Hammersmith Odeon, a 1932 art deco hall holding about five thousand, and still the room touring bands want between the academies and the arenas.… -
3 listed
New Wimbledon Theatre
An Edwardian receiving house on the Broadway, about seventeen hundred seats, taking touring musicals and plays on their way round the country and a substantial pantomime… -
3 listed
Exmouth Market
A pedestrianised street in Clerkenwell, restaurants down both sides and a weekday lunch market in the middle. Small enough to walk in three minutes and good… -
3 listed
Peckham Levels
Seven floors of a disused multi-storey car park given over to studios, food and a bar, with the concrete and the ramps left exactly as they… -
3 listed
Almeida Theatre
A hundred and fifty year old building on a side street in Islington, three hundred and twenty seats, and a reputation out of all proportion to… -
3 listed
Sadler's Wells East
The new house on the Olympic park at Stratford, opened in 2025, five hundred and fifty seats and built for dance from the ground up rather… -
3 listed
Fashion and Textile Museum
Zandra Rhodes's orange and pink building on Bermondsey Street, a small museum with no permanent collection: it runs two or three exhibitions a year and that… -
3 listed
Old Royal Naval College
Greenwich's grandest set piece, Wren again, built as a hospital for seamen and later the naval college, and now the centre of the Maritime Greenwich world… -
3 listed
Portobello Road
The antiques run on Saturday morning at the Notting Hill end, and it is the busiest street market in London while it lasts. Further north it… -
3 listed
Southwark Playhouse Elephant
The second Southwark Playhouse, opened in 2023 near Elephant and Castle, with two auditoriums. New plays and small musicals, often transferring in or out. The main… -
3 listed
Royal Opera House
Bow Street, Covent Garden. Day seats and standing places go on sale online in the morning at a fraction of the stalls price, which is the… -
3 listed
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
The park left behind by the 2012 games at Stratford, with the aquatics centre, the velodrome and the ArcelorMittal Orbit still working, and waterways and wildflower… -
3 listed
Battersea Power Station
The power station reopened in 2022 as shops, restaurants and offices, with a glass lift that goes up one of the chimneys for a view along… -
3 listed
Union Chapel
A working Victorian chapel in Islington that doubles as one of the best-sounding rooms in London, with the congregation's pews as the seating and the organ… -
3 listed
Handel Hendrix House
Two musicians, two hundred years apart, in adjoining Mayfair houses. Handel wrote Messiah at number 25; Jimi Hendrix rented the top floor of number 23 in… -
3 listed
The Great Barn, Harmondsworth
The Great Barn at Harmondsworth, Middlesex UB7. Listed here for Open House London weekends, when it opens as a drop-in from 11am to 5pm, no booking. -
3 listed
Ridley Road Market
The Dalston street market, Caribbean, African and Turkish groceries down both sides, running six days a week and going since the 1880s. Fish, yams, fabric and… -
3 listed
Brixton Village
A covered market arcade off Coldharbour Lane, saved from demolition and now packed with restaurants that are mostly a dozen covers each. Caribbean, Colombian, Sichuan, Italian,… -
3 listed
Kings Place
A concert hall behind King's Cross, built in 2008, with two halls and a programme that runs from chamber music to spoken word and folk. Hall… -
3 listed
Rio Cinema
A single-screen art deco cinema in Dalston, run as a charity, showing new releases alongside repertory and all-nighters. The auditorium is a listed 1930s interior and… -
3 listed
Chelsea Physic Garden
Four walled acres by the river, founded in 1673 to teach apprentice apothecaries which plants heal and which kill, and still laid out by what things… -
3 listed
British Museum
Great Russell Street, free, and open late on Fridays. The Bayeux Tapestry is here from September 2026 to July 2027 on a separate timed ticket. -
3 listed
Ritzy Picturehouse
Brixton's cinema since 1911, on Windrush Square, with five screens now behind the original frontage. The upstairs bar has live music several nights a week and… -
3 listed
Chiswick House
A Palladian villa in west London with gardens that are free to walk. The camellias in the conservatory flower in late winter, which is the time… -
3 listed
Wimbledon Common
Over a thousand acres of common, heath and woodland with a working windmill in the middle and a golf course around it. Open, unfenced and easy… -
3 listed
Royal Academy of Arts
An artist-run institution on Piccadilly, in Burlington House, putting on the large loan exhibitions that define a London art season. The Summer Exhibition, open to anyone… -
3 listed
Coal Drops Yard
Two Victorian coal warehouses behind King's Cross, reroofed by Heatherwick so the two ranges kiss in the middle. Shops and restaurants now, and busier in the… -
3 listed
Mercato Metropolitano
A former paper factory off Elephant and Castle turned into a covered food market, Italian at its root and now much wider than that. Long shared… -
3 listed
Regent's Park
The most formal of the central royal parks, with Queen Mary's Gardens holding several thousand roses that peak in June. The Open Air Theatre runs a… -
3 listed
Electric Cinema
One of the oldest working cinemas in Britain, on Portobello Road since 1910. Leather armchairs, footstools and a bar you can take in with you, which… -
3 listed
Museum of Brands
Twelve thousand everyday objects in Notting Hill, arranged as a corridor running from the Victorians to now, so you walk forward in time past the packaging… -
3 listed
Royal Observatory
On the hill in Greenwich Park, where the Prime Meridian is a line in the courtyard that everyone stands astride. Flamsteed House, Harrison's sea clocks and… -
3 listed
Elephant Park
The new quarter built where the Heygate estate stood, with a proper public park at the centre of it and a row of restaurants and independent… -
3 listed
Museum of the Order of St John
A Tudor gatehouse in Clerkenwell holding the history of the Knights Hospitaller and, through them, of St John Ambulance. Free. The gatehouse and the Norman crypt… -
2 listed
Hampton Court Palace
Henry VIII's palace on the river at East Molesey, half Tudor and half Baroque because William and Mary rebuilt one side and ran out of money… -
2 listed
Natural History Museum
The South Kensington museum, free, with the blue whale hanging in Hintze Hall, the dinosaurs, and Waterhouse's terracotta building carved with animals inside and out. Busiest… -
2 listed
Somerset House
The courtyard on the Strand, with the ice rink from November to January and a programme of exhibitions and outdoor cinema the rest of the year.… -
2 listed
Oxford Street
London's main shopping street, a mile and a half of it, and the first place most visitors go and most Londoners avoid. Best treated as a… -
2 listed
Parliament Hill
The north end of Hampstead Heath, open grass rising to a view of the City and the West End that is protected in law, so nothing… -
2 listed
Regent Street
Nash's curve between Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus, built as a boundary between Mayfair and Soho and still owned in one piece by the Crown Estate,… -
2 listed
ExCeL London
The exhibition centre on the Royal Victoria Dock, a single long building of halls that takes the big trade shows, fan conventions and science fairs. Custom… -
2 listed
Highgate Cemetery
Swain's Lane. The West side is guided access only, twelve to a group, and the guides are the reason to go rather than an inconvenience. Weekend… -
2 listed
Richmond Park
The largest of the royal parks, two and a half thousand acres with red and fallow deer roaming loose, and the protected view of St Paul's… -
2 listed
London Palladium
A 1910 variety house on Argyll Street, two thousand seats under a barrel roof, and still the theatre most performers say they wanted to play. The… -
2 listed
Hampstead Heath
Eight hundred acres, three swimming ponds open all year, and the view from Parliament Hill. September is the good month for the ponds: the water is… -
2 listed
Southwark Cathedral
The cathedral beside Borough Market, parts of it medieval and free to walk into, with a Shakespeare memorial and his brother buried in the choir. Small… -
2 listed
Nunhead Cemetery
One of the Magnificent Seven, half reclaimed by woodland, free and open daily. The chapel opens on the volunteer open days and the view of St… -
2 listed
Battersea Park
Two hundred acres on the south bank between the two bridges, with a boating lake, a children's zoo and the Peace Pagoda facing the river. Flatter… -
2 listed
Bethnal Green Working Men's Club
A real working men's club from 1953 that kept the flock wallpaper, the glitter curtain and the sprung dance floor, and started putting on burlesque and… -
2 listed
St James's Park
The oldest of the royal parks, with a lake, resident pelicans that have been there since a Russian ambassador donated the first in 1664, and the… -
2 listed
Barbican Centre
The concrete arts centre in the middle of the Barbican Estate, home of the London Symphony Orchestra, with a concert hall, a theatre, three cinemas, an… -
2 listed
Design Museum
In the old Commonwealth Institute building in Kensington, under a hyperbolic paraboloid roof that is the best thing about the place. The permanent collection of twentieth… -
2 listed
BT Tower
The BT Tower on Cleveland Street, London W1T. Listed here for Open House London, when it opens for short morning visits that must be booked ahead. -
2 listed
Carnaby Street
The pedestrian street behind Regent Street, famous for the sixties and still trading on it, though the shops are chains now with the independents pushed into… -
2 listed
London Museum Docklands
A Georgian warehouse on West India Quay holding the best account of the docks and the slave trade in the city. Always free and rarely busy… -
2 listed
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Tottenham's ground on the High Road, which doubles as the NFL's London home each October. White Hart Lane on the Overground is the closest station, and… -
2 listed
Leadenhall Market
The Victorian covered market in the City, painted cream and maroon ironwork over cobbles, on a site that has held a market since the fourteenth century.… -
2 listed
Theatre Royal Drury Lane
The oldest theatre in the world still in use, open on Catherine Street since 1663 and rebuilt four times since. The auditorium seats more than two… -
2 listed
Frameless
An immersive digital art space under Marble Arch, where paintings are projected across floors and walls at scale in four rooms. Not a gallery and not… -
2 listed
Merchant Square
The canalside square at Paddington Basin, with Heatherwick's Rolling Bridge curling up on a schedule and the Fan Bridge opening beside it. Floating bars, a lido… -
2 listed
Bussey Building
A Victorian cricket-bat factory on Rye Lane holding a club, a cinema, a theatre and a rooftop bar in the same building. The rooftop cinema runs… -
2 listed
Tate Britain
The original Tate, on Millbank since 1897, and the place to see five hundred years of British art in one building. It holds the largest collection… -
1 listed
Outernet
Four storeys of wraparound screen in a hall by Tottenham Court Road station, free to walk into, showing art, trailers and advertising in rotation. The scale… -
1 listed
Sophisticats
A licensed strip club on Brewer Street, in the part of Soho that has been doing this since long before the area was tidied up. Open… -
1 listed
Brixton House
Brixton House, the theatre on Coldharbour Lane, London SW9. Listed here for its Open House London afternoon behind the scenes, a drop-in with no booking. -
1 listed
Palace Theatre
The red brick landmark on Cambridge Circus, built in 1891 as an opera house and one of the West End's grandest auditoriums, with 1,434 seats. It… -
1 listed
Bounce
Ping pong as a bar rather than a sport, on the site in Farringdon where the game was patented in 1901, with a second room in… -
1 listed
The Spaniards Inn
A sixteenth century pub on the lane between Hampstead and Highgate, with a toll house opposite that still narrows the road to one car. Low beams,… -
1 listed
Wyndham's Theatre
A small, ornate Victorian house on Charing Cross Road, built in 1899 and seating about 750, which makes it one of the West End rooms where… -
1 listed
Italian Gardens
An ornamental water garden of four basins and a marble pump house at the north end of Kensington Gardens, built in the 1860s and generally said… -
1 listed
Olympia London
The Victorian exhibition halls on Hammersmith Road, W14 8UX, where the glass roofed Grand Hall has been taking fairs, conventions and gigs since 1886. Kensington (Olympia)… -
1 listed
Paddington Basin
The end of the Grand Union Canal, ringed by offices and moored narrowboats, with Heatherwick's Rolling Bridge curling itself up on a published schedule and the… -
1 listed
St Paul's Cathedral
Wren's cathedral, rebuilt after the Great Fire and finished in 1711, and still the building the City arranges itself around. Sightseeing takes you through the nave… -
1 listed
Bishopsgate Goodsyard
Bishopsgate Goodsyard in Shoreditch, London E1. Listed here for Open House London, when its Braithwaite Arches open for visits booked ahead. -
1 listed
National Portrait Gallery
The gallery of faces behind the National Gallery, entered from St Martin's Place or Orange Street, with five centuries of British portraits from the Tudors to… -
1 listed
The Strand
The street between Trafalgar Square and Aldwych, which hosts the London Design Festival's landmark installation each September and is best seen after the crowds have gone.… -
1 listed
Buckingham Palace
The working headquarters of the monarchy, at the end of the Mall. The State Rooms open to visitors in late summer while the King is in… -
1 listed
Tower Bridge
The bascule bridge everyone means when they say London Bridge, finished in 1894 and still lifting for tall ships around a thousand times a year. The… -
1 listed
Southwark Bridge
The quietest of the central Thames crossings, cast iron and painted yellow and green, running from Queen Street Place on the City side to Southwark Street.… -
1 listed
Kensington Gardens
The western half of the Hyde Park block, quieter and more formal than its neighbour, with the Round Pond, the Italian Gardens at the north end,… -
1 listed
Troxy
A 1930s art deco cinema at 490 Commercial Road, E1 0HX, now one of east London's bigger standing rooms: rock, dance nights, wrestling, podcast recordings and… -
1 listed
Beigel Bake
Brick Lane, open every hour of every day, and the salt beef at three in the morning is the correct order. Cash is quicker than card… -
1 listed
Peter Harrison Planetarium
The bronze cone leaning out of the hill beside the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, angled at the North Star, with a hundred and twenty seats inside.… -
1 listed
The Gaumont State, Kilburn
The Gaumont State Theatre on Kilburn High Road, London NW6. Listed here for Open House London, when it opens as a drop-in from midday to 7pm,… -
1 listed
The Truman Brewery
The old Truman brewery on Brick Lane, a block of yards, warehouses and halls that now holds markets, fairs, shops and bars. It is the Brick… -
1 listed
Lloyd's of London
Richard Rogers' inside-out building on Lime Street, normally closed to the public and opening for Open House, where it is the most sought-after slot in the… -
1 listed
Soho Theatre
Dean Street, three rooms, and the place most of the country's stand-ups work through before anyone has heard of them. Comedy from about fifteen pounds, shows… -
1 listed
Canada Square Park
The open square at the centre of Canary Wharf, surrounded on all sides by towers, which makes it a suntrap at lunchtime and a wind tunnel… -
1 listed
Victoria Palace Theatre
An Edwardian house on Victoria Street, restored in 2017 and given over to a long-running musical since. Fourteen hundred seats and a marble foyer that is… -
1 listed
London Stadium
The 2012 Olympic stadium on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, now West Ham's ground and the biggest room in east London for a concert or a fair.… -
1 listed
Kensington Palace
A red brick Jacobean house in Kensington Gardens, home to Victoria as a child and to several royal households now. The public half covers the State… -
1 listed
BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir
The Neasden temple, carved in Bulgarian limestone and Italian marble and opened in 1995. Open to visitors every day, free to enter, with a charge for… -
1 listed
Finsbury Park
The 110 acre Victorian park between Finsbury Park and Manor House stations, N4 2DH, run by Haringey Council. Most of the year it is a boating… -
1 listed
Royal Albert Hall
The great oval on the edge of Hyde Park, opened in 1871 and seating over five thousand under the mushroom-shaped acoustic diffusers that were bolted to… -
1 listed
Methodist Central Hall
Methodist Central Hall on Storey's Gate, Westminster, London SW1. Listed here for Open House London, when it opens as a drop-in afternoon with no booking. -
1 listed
Churchill War Rooms
The basement under the Treasury where the war cabinet worked from 1939, left as it was found when the lights were switched off in 1945, down… -
1 listed
Victoria Park
The oldest public park in Britain, opened in 1845 after a petition from the East End, and still the best park in London for actually using… -
1 listed
Camden Collective
A former infants' school and an old auction house on Buck Street, a minute off Camden High Street, run as free and cheap workspace for people… -
1 listed
Kenwood House
A white neoclassical villa on the northern edge of Hampstead Heath with a Robert Adam library and, hanging in the rooms and free to see, a… -
1 listed
Sky Garden
Three storeys of planting under a glass dome at the top of the Walkie Talkie on Fenchurch Street, and the only high viewpoint in the City… -
1 listed
V&A East Museum
The V&A's new museum on the East Bank of the Olympic Park in Stratford, a few minutes from Stratford station, given over to art, design, fashion… -
1 listed
Wimbledon Park
The park behind the tennis, and the site of one of the few London firework displays actually held on 5 November rather than the weekend after. -
1 listed
Covent Garden Piazza
The old fruit and vegetable market hall, glassed over and full of shops, with street performers working licensed pitches in the west courtyard and under the… -
1 listed
Westminster Abbey
A coronation church since 1066 and a burial ground for most of the people in the history books, packed so tightly that you walk on the… -
1 listed
SS Robin
The world's only surviving complete Victorian steamship, moored at Trinity Buoy Wharf beside London's only lighthouse, at the point where the Lea meets the Thames. Concerts… -
1 listed
Leicester Square
The cinema square, and the place where London film premieres happen behind barriers. Not somewhere anyone lingers by choice, but it is the way to Chinatown… -
1 listed
The Glory
An East End pub on Kingsland Road with a performance basement, and one of the places new drag and cabaret acts in London actually come up… -
1 listed
The British Library
The national library at 96 Euston Road, NW1 2DB, next to St Pancras. The Treasures gallery, the piazza and the cafes cost nothing and need no… -
1 listed
Southbank Centre
The concrete complex between Waterloo Bridge and the Hungerford footbridges: Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Hayward Gallery. Much of it is free to… - 1 listed Punchdrunk Enrichment Stores
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1 listed
606 Club
A basement jazz club on Lots Road at the far end of Chelsea, near the old power station, running since the 1970s and open to non-members.… -
1 listed
Crossrail Place
A roof garden inside a timber lattice hull above the Canary Wharf Elizabeth line station, planted along the line of longitude the site sits on: Asian… -
1 listed
Westminster Cathedral
The mother church of Catholic England, in striped red brick and Byzantine domes rather than gothic, and deliberately unlike the Abbey up the road. The mosaics… -
1 listed
Two Temple Place
A neo-Tudor house on Victoria Embankment built for William Waldorf Astor in the 1890s and now owned by the Bulldog Trust, with a hammerbeam hall, carved… -
1 listed
Leighton House
The painter Frederic Leighton's studio-house in Holland Park, built around an Arab Hall lined with sixteenth century Damascus tiles and a gold mosaic frieze, which arrives… -
1 listed
Theatre Royal Stratford East
The Victorian producing house on Gerry Raffles Square, a minute from Stratford station and a world away from the shopping centre next door. It makes its… -
1 listed
The Old Vic
The Cut, Waterloo, since 1818. Day seats go on sale online at ten each morning and returns turn up at the box office an hour before… -
1 listed
St Dunstan in the East Church Garden
A Wren church gutted in the Blitz and left as a ruin, with a public garden planted inside the walls: ivy up the windows, a fountain… -
1 listed
Barbican Conservatory
Two thousand species under glass above the theatre, open only on selected Sundays and free, but you book a slot and they go on the Wednesday… -
1 listed
Brixton Windmill
London's last working windmill, standing in a park off Brixton Hill, restored and milling wheat into flour you can buy in the shop. The park around… -
1 listed
London Bridge City Pier
The river bus stop between Tower Bridge and London Bridge, on the south bank next to Hay's Galleria. Thames Clippers call here every twenty minutes or… -
1 listed
Cellar Door
A former gentlemen's public convenience at Aldwych, now a bar that seats about forty and puts cabaret on every night. Getting in is free. The room… -
1 listed
Harold Pinter Theatre
The 800 seat West End house on Panton Street, tucked between the Haymarket and Leicester Square, renamed for Pinter in 2011 after a century as the… -
1 listed
All Star Lanes
Bowling done as a night out rather than a sport: a handful of lanes, low light, booths and a long cocktail list. There are branches in… -
1 listed
The Cenotaph
Lutyens's war memorial in the middle of Whitehall, unveiled in 1920, deliberately carrying no religious symbol and no name. The National Service of Remembrance is held… -
1 listed
Adelphi Theatre
A West End theatre on the Strand with an art deco auditorium, co-owned by LW Theatres and the Nederlander Group, and for two centuries a house… -
1 listed
Tower of London
A thousand years of it by the river, with Halloween interpretation included in admission in late October and the poppy installations most autumns. Tower Hill, and… -
1 listed
Fitzrovia Chapel
All that survives of the Middlesex Hospital, kept when the rest was demolished and now standing alone in a courtyard off Mortimer Street. The interior is… -
1 listed
Big Penny Social
An enormous former brewery hall on the Blackhorse Beer Mile in Walthamstow, with a beer garden, street food counters and a stage at one end. The… -
1 listed
London Oratory
The Brompton Oratory, on the road behind the V&A, built in the 1880s in Italian Baroque and unlike any other church in London for it: a… -
1 listed
Hippodrome Casino
A Victorian theatre off Leicester Square that became a casino, with the Matcham Room upstairs still working as a cabaret theatre. Getting into the building costs… -
1 listed
Space House
Space House on Kemble Street, London WC2. Listed here for Open House London, when it opens for a single hour of visits booked ahead. -
1 listed
Prince Charles Cinema
The basement and ground floor cinema on Leicester Place, thirty seconds from Leicester Square and the last place in the West End still showing 35mm by… -
1 listed
Apollo Victoria Theatre
A 1930 art deco cinema turned theatre, with a sea-cave interior of scallops and fountains that was described at the time as a mermaid's dream. Around… -
1 listed
The Crystal Maze LIVE Experience
The television show rebuilt as something you play, in teams, across the four zones, with a Maze Master shouting at you throughout. Around ninety minutes of… -
1 listed
Flight Club
Darts rearranged as a group activity, with automatic scoring, oches hired by the hour and table service. Branches in Shoreditch, Bloomsbury and Victoria. It works better… -
1 listed
Lower Marsh
A street market behind Waterloo that has run since the nineteenth century, food stalls at lunchtime on weekdays and independent shops the rest of the time.… -
1 listed
Cirque le Soir
A circus themed nightclub on Ganton Street that puts performers on the floor rather than a stage, so the cabaret happens around you while the room… - 1 listed Drapers' Hall
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1 listed
BFI IMAX
The glass drum in the middle of the Waterloo roundabout, reached by subways under the traffic, holding the largest cinema screen in the country at around… -
1 listed
The George Inn
The last galleried coaching inn left in London, off Borough High Street, owned by the National Trust and still a working pub. Low doorways, uneven floors… -
1 listed
National Army Museum
The Army's own museum, on Royal Hospital Road next door to the Chelsea Pensioners, telling the story of British soldiers across its galleries. It is one… -
1 listed
Netil360
A rooftop bar on top of Netil House in London Fields, reached by a lift and a flight of stairs, looking west across the whole city… -
1 listed
The Box Soho
A late night theatre club on Walker's Court, running a variety show that is deliberately hard to describe and firmly not for everyone. It works on… - 1 listed Freud Museum London
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1 listed
King’s Head Theatre
A fringe theatre above a pub at 116 Upper Street, Islington, with a long record of new writing and small scale shows. -
1 listed
Borough Market
A wholesale market since at least the twelfth century, under the railway arches at London Bridge, and a food market for visitors since the nineties. Busy… -
1 listed
The London Dungeon
Ninety minutes of London's grislier history played by live actors on the South Bank, with two rides in the middle of it. Firmly a show rather… -
0 listed
Corsica Studios
Closed. The two arches at Elephant and Castle shut at the end of March 2026 after twenty years, and the club was clear that it was… -
0 listed
KOKO
Camden, in a theatre that has been standing since 1901, and now as much a building of rooms as a single venue: the main hall for… -
0 listed
BFI Southbank
Four screens under Waterloo Bridge on Belvedere Road, the BFI's own cinema and the home of its archive programming. Alongside new releases it runs seasons, restorations…