Guides July 2027 Updated 21 Sep 2026
Things to do in London in July
Wimbledon, the Proms, and the city at full volume. BST Hyde Park over two weekends, Pride on the first Saturday, Proms standing tickets on the day.
July is peak season. Everything is on, everything is busy, and the evenings are long enough that a night out can start at eight and still feel early.
What is on
Wimbledon runs into the second week. BST Hyde Park fills two weekends with big outdoor shows. The Proms open at the Royal Albert Hall in the middle of the month and run to September, with standing tickets sold on the day for a few pounds. Pride in London is usually the first Saturday. School holidays start in the last week and the city changes character.
What to book, and when
Proms Promming tickets are the best value in London classical music and are sold on the day rather than booked, so they need turning up for rather than planning. BST and the big outdoor shows sell out months ahead. Hotels climb steeply once the schools break up.
The practical part
The hottest month, and London is not built for it: few buildings have air conditioning and the tube is worse than the street. Plan the middle of the day indoors and the evening outside, which is the reverse of the usual advice.
If the weather turns
London has more indoor answers than almost anywhere, and most of the good ones cost nothing: the free museums are open every day and the collections are free, and we keep a guide to where to go when it rains. If it stays dry, the free views need no ticket. Everything free this month is on our free listings, and if you are out after eleven, what is open late.
Where to go
Hyde Park for BST and the parks. Wimbledon for Wimbledon and the queue. Soho for Pride if it lands in July. South Kensington for the Proms, where the standing tickets are sold on the day.
What is free
Pride is free to watch. The Proms have standing tickets for a few pounds sold on the day, which is the best value in London classical music. Every park and every lido queue is free or close to it. The South Bank runs free programming all summer.
With children, or visitors
School holidays start in the last week and everything aimed at children fills immediately. The fountains, the lidos and the paddling pools are the answer, and most cost nothing. Avoid the tube in the middle of the day with small children; the Central line in July is genuinely unpleasant.
If you do one thing
Queue for the Proms. Turn up at the Royal Albert Hall, pay a few pounds, and stand in the arena. It is the cheapest world class thing London does and it happens most nights for two months.
The listings below are what we have actually checked for July, soonest first.
What is on in July
Thu 1 to Sat 31 JulyThursday
1 July-
Free
Crossrail Place Roof Garden
A garden under a timber lattice roof on top of the station, planted either side of the meridian with species from the hemisphere they belong to. Free, open early, and covered.
-
Sport Free
Dogs on Hampstead Heath
Eight hundred acres, off lead almost everywhere, and the one swimming pond dogs are allowed in is not one of the bathing ponds. Busiest at the Parliament Hill end on a weekend morning.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: Westminster Cathedral
Neo Byzantine, still unfinished above the arches, and free to walk into. The campanile lift is ticketed and gives one of the least crowded views in central London.
-
Food and drink Free
Leadenhall Market
A Victorian covered market in cream and burgundy, free to walk through and open to the street. Busy with the City at lunch and almost empty at the weekend, which is when to photograph it.
-
Free
Parliament Hill viewpoint
A protected view all the way to the City, which is why nothing is allowed to be built in front of it. Ten minutes up from Gospel Oak and worth doing an hour before sunset.
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Sport Free
Dogs in Richmond Park
The largest of the royal parks and the one with the deer, which is why dogs must be on a lead in May and June and in September and October. The gates open and close with the light.
-
Sport Free
Dogs in Battersea Park
Flat, walled, and small enough to do a full circuit in half an hour, with the river along one side and a cafe at each end. The one park on this list you can reach on foot from a station.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: Southwark Cathedral
Free, next door to the market, and almost always empty by comparison. Shakespeare's brother is buried here and there is a memorial to the man himself along the south aisle.
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Free
St Dunstan in the East
A Wren church bombed in 1941 and left as a ruin with a garden planted inside it. Free, open from eight, and quietest before the City arrives. The tower is still standing.
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Free
St James’s Park, free all day
The oldest of the royal parks and the one with the pelicans, fed near Duck Island in the afternoon. The bridge gives the view down the lake to Horse Guards that ends up on the postcards.
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Free
The Italian Gardens, Kensington Gardens
Four basins and a pump house Albert built for Victoria, at the Lancaster Gate corner of the park. Best in the hour before the fountains go off for the night, when the light comes across the water.
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Free
The Kyoto Garden, Holland Park
A Japanese garden given to the borough in 1991, with koi, a waterfall and peacocks that have no fear of anyone. Free, and quietest before the school run ends.
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Sport Free
Towpath walk: Paddington Basin to Little Venice
Twenty minutes of canal that most people who work here never walk. Comes out at the pool where three waterways meet, with the narrowboats and the puppet theatre barge.
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Exhibitions From £32
Churchill War Rooms
The bunker left as it was on the day it closed in 1945, down to the pins in the map. Book a slot: it sells out, and the queue on the day is outdoors.
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Exhibitions From £30
Westminster Abbey
Ticketed for sightseeing, free if you come to a service, and Evensong is sung most weekday afternoons in term. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries are up in the triforium, which most visitors miss.
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Free
Carnaby Street and the courts
The street itself takes five minutes; Kingly Court behind it takes an afternoon. Three floors of a courtyard with the roof open in summer and closed in winter.
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Exhibitions From £24
Frameless
Four rooms of projected painting, floor to ceiling, under Marble Arch. Permanent rather than a touring show, so there is no rush, and quietest in the first hour of the day.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: Kenwood House
A Robert Adam house at the top of the Heath with a Rembrandt self portrait and a Vermeer in it, and no admission charge. The library is the room people stand in longest.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: the Design Museum
The permanent collection upstairs costs nothing and takes about an hour. The building is the old Commonwealth Institute, and the roof is worth standing under before you look at anything.
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Exhibitions Free
Free entry: the Natural History Museum
Free, permanent, and busiest between eleven and three. Go at opening or after four and Hintze Hall is almost yours. Timed tickets are free but worth booking at the weekend.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: the Science Museum
The permanent galleries cost nothing. Making the Modern World runs the whole length of the ground floor and is the one to see if you only have an hour.
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Exhibitions Free
Free entry: the V and A
Seven miles of gallery, free, and nobody sees it all. The cast courts and the John Madejski Garden are the two most people remember, and the garden is a good place to stop rather than leave.
-
Exhibitions From £25
Kensington Palace and the sunken garden
The state apartments are ticketed, but the sunken garden outside them is free and is the bit most people photograph. Go on a weekday morning and the King's Staircase is almost empty.
-
Free
Leake Street Arches, the legal graffiti tunnel
A road tunnel under the station where painting the walls is allowed, so it looks different every week. Bring a torch for the far end and expect the smell of aerosol.
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Exhibitions From £11
Leighton House, the Arab Hall
A Victorian painter built himself a house with a domed hall of Damascus tiles in it, and it is still there. Small, so an hour does it, and rarely busy.
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Exhibitions Free
Outernet London
Four storeys of screen wrapped around a public hall by Tottenham Court Road station, free to walk into. What is on changes constantly; five minutes is usually enough.
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Free
Sky Garden
Three floors of planted terrace at the top of the Walkie Talkie, free but booked in advance and the slots go about three weeks out. Sunset slots go first. Photo identification on the door.
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Free
Street art on Brick Lane
The walls change every few weeks, so the walk is different from the one anybody photographed last year. Start at the Truman Brewery and work north up the side streets.
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Free
The floating pocket park, Merchant Square
A garden built on a pontoon in the basin, open to anyone. Small, and that is rather the point: it is a place to sit on the water in the middle of a building site of a neighbourhood.
-
Sport From £34
Turkish baths at Porchester Spa
A 1929 Turkish and Russian bath house run by the council, so it costs a fraction of the spa hotels. Check which days are mixed and which are single sex before you go, because it changes through the week.
-
Exhibitions From £45
The Crystal Maze LIVE Experience
The television set rebuilt under Shaftesbury Avenue, played in teams of up to eight with a maze master shouting at you. Ninety minutes, and you do need to book.
-
Food and drink From £14
Crazy golf at Swingers, West End
Two nine hole courses under a glass roof with street food traders around the edge. Over 18s in the evening, and booking is effectively required at the weekend.
-
Talks From £12
Planetarium show at the Royal Observatory
The only planetarium in London, in a cone of bronze angled at the pole star, with a live astronomer rather than a recording. Shows run through the day and last about half an hour.
-
Food and drink From £6
The Spaniards Inn
A 1585 coaching inn at the top of the Heath with a walled garden, a dog wash at the door and a long history of letting them in. Low beams, so mind your head rather than the dog.
-
Food and drink From £6
Netil360 rooftop, Hackney
A roof above a car park in London Fields with the whole City skyline lined up in front of it. Small, so it fills on a warm evening; the view is the reason rather than the drinks list.
-
Food and drink From £12
Darts at Flight Club, Shoreditch
Darts with the scoring done for you and a camera on the board, booked by the oche rather than the person. Cheaper before six and on a weekday, and it does run late.
-
Clubs From £6
Rooftop at the Bussey Building
Peckham's roof bar, up several flights above the old cricket bat factory, looking back at the city from the south. Runs late at the weekend and the yard below keeps going after it shuts.
-
Food and drink From £6
The George Inn, the last galleried coaching inn
The only galleried coaching inn left in London, owned by the National Trust and still working as a pub. The yard fills early on a warm evening.
-
Free
Evening at the Brompton Oratory
An enormous Italianate interior a minute from the museums, free to walk into, and almost always quiet. Sung services are listed on the door.
-
Sport From £12
Public skating at Queens Ice and Bowl
A full size rink under Queensway, open sessions most of the day and into the evening. Skate hire is included in the session price. Book ahead at weekends, because it fills with birthday parties.
-
Free
Evening walk: Kensington Gardens to the Round Pond
The pond sits on the axis of the palace, so the view back at it in low light is the one the garden was laid out to give you. Twenty minutes from the High Street.
-
Free
Waterloo Bridge at dusk
The only crossing with both the City and Westminster in one turn of the head. Built largely by women during the war, which is why it is sometimes called the Ladies Bridge.
-
Free
Stargazing on Hampstead Heath
As dark as central London gets, which is not very, but Parliament Hill has the horizon and the local society runs public evenings on the hill through the winter. Take a torch and a coat.
-
Food and drink Advance fares vary
A day in Brighton
An hour from Victoria or London Bridge and the most reliable seaside day out from London. The Lanes when it rains, the pier when it does not, and the last train back is late.
-
Food and drink Advance fares vary, kids £1 each with an adult
A day in Whitstable
Around an hour and a quarter from St Pancras on the highspeed, and under ten minutes from the station to the beach. Oysters on the harbour and the huts along the shingle.
-
Free
A walk through Hampstead village
Lanes that were a hill village before London reached them, and still read like one above the high street. Flask Walk and Holly Mount are the two to take if you only take two.
-
Food and drink From £35
Bottomless brunch in Soho
More bottomless brunch per square yard than anywhere in London, and the offers change often enough that the street is the reliable part rather than any one room. Book: Saturdays go.
-
Food and drink From £28
Bottomless brunch in Brixton
The market halls do it best and cheapest, and you can walk between three sittings in five minutes if the first is full. Two hours is the usual limit.
-
Free
Hippodrome Casino
A Victorian theatre off Leicester Square turned casino, free to walk into at any hour, with a working cabaret room upstairs.
-
Food and drink From £10
Ping pong at Bounce, Old Street
Tables by the hour in a basement that used to be a ping pong hall, which is a rare thing to be able to say. Loud after nine and quiet before seven.
-
Cabaret Free upstairs, basement shows ticketed
The Glory
An East End pub with a performance basement, and one of the rooms new drag and cabaret acts in London actually come up through.
-
Cabaret Free entry, minimum spend on some nights
Cellar Door
A former gentlemen's public convenience at Aldwych, now a forty seat bar with cabaret on every night. Free to walk into.
-
Film From £14
A screening at the BFI IMAX
The biggest screen in the country, in a glass drum in the middle of a roundabout. Worth it for something shot on film stock, less so for anything upscaled.
-
Late night Late
Sophisticats
A licensed strip club on Brewer Street, open Monday to Saturday from ten until three and closed on Sunday. Over 18s, photo ID on the door.
-
Clubs Guest list or a table booking
Cirque le Soir
A circus themed nightclub on Ganton Street that puts the performers on the floor rather than a stage. Guest list or tables, not a walk up.
-
Cabaret Table booking or membership
The Box Soho
A late night theatre club on Walker's Court running a variety show that is deliberately hard to describe. Over 21s, tables and membership only.
-
Exhibitions Advance fares vary, kids £1 each with an adult
A day in Margate
An hour and a half from St Pancras. Turner Contemporary is free, the sand is the best within reach of London, and the old town is a short walk from the station.
-
Food and drink From £30
Bottomless brunch in Shoreditch
Cheaper than Soho and longer sittings, mostly around Redchurch Street and the Boundary. Sundays run into the evening here in a way they do not further west.
-
Food and drink From £11
Bowling at All Star Lanes, Brick Lane
Four lanes in a basement done out as an American diner, which sounds worse than it is. Booked by the lane for up to eight, and the kitchen runs as late as the bowling.
-
Exhibitions Advance fares vary
A day in Oxford
An hour from Paddington or Marylebone. The Ashmolean and the Pitt Rivers are both free, and most colleges let visitors in for a few pounds in the afternoon.
-
Free
Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace
Free, and busier than anything else on this list. It does not run every day and it is called off in bad weather, so check the Household Division calendar the morning you go.
-
Food and drink From £7
Lower Marsh Market
A weekday street market that has been there since the 1850s, now mostly hot food at lunch. Quieter and cheaper than Borough, and five minutes from the same trains.
-
Food and drink From £8
Lunchtime in Leadenhall Market
The traders under the roof are mostly food at midday, and the pubs put their tables out under the ironwork. Weekdays only: most of it shuts by early evening and all of it at the weekend.
-
Exhibitions Advance fares vary
A day in Cambridge
Fifty minutes from King's Cross, which makes it the closest of the university towns. The Fitzwilliam is free and punting is the thing everyone does and nobody regrets.
-
Theatre From £25
Evening performance at the Victoria Palace Theatre
A Matcham house from 1911, restored to the gilt and then some. Day seats and returns go at the box office in the morning, which is the cheapest way in.
-
Food and drink Advance fares vary, kids £1 each with an adult
A day in Broadstairs
An hour and twenty-one minutes from St Pancras. Seven beaches and bays for a town this size, three of them Blue Flag, with Viking Bay in the middle.
-
Exhibitions Advance fares vary, kids £1 each with an adult
A day in Canterbury
Fifty-one minutes to Canterbury West on the highspeed from St Pancras. A UNESCO cathedral, cobbled streets and the Stour running through the middle of it.
-
Food and drink Advance fares vary, kids £1 each with an adult
A day in Deal
Under an hour and a half from St Pancras. A seafront nobody has built on, a high street that keeps winning awards, and a castle at the end of it.
-
Exhibitions Advance fares vary, kids £1 each with an adult
A day in Dover
An hour and a quarter to Dover Priory on the highspeed. The white cliffs, a castle with wartime tunnels under it, and France on the horizon on a clear day.
-
Food and drink Advance fares vary, kids £1 each with an adult
A day in Folkestone
Just under an hour from St Pancras on the highspeed, which makes it the quickest way from London to the sea. The Creative Quarter is the cobbled half.
-
Exhibitions Advance fares vary, kids £1 each with an adult
A day in Hastings
Under two hours from Charing Cross, the longest here and the only one not on the highspeed. The Old Town alleyways, the castle ruins above them and the pier.
-
Food and drink Advance fares vary, kids £1 each with an adult
A day in Tunbridge Wells
Around fifty minutes from London Bridge, the shortest trip on this page. A spa town for four hundred years, with the Pantiles at the middle of it.
-
Food and drink From £8
Borough Market, full market days
The full market runs Wednesday to Saturday, and Wednesday is the one where you can actually reach a stall. Monday and Tuesday are limited, which catches people out.
-
Exhibitions Free
The Fitzrovia Chapel, open to visitors
All that survives of the Middlesex Hospital: a gold mosaic chapel standing on its own in a new square. Free, and open on set days in the middle of the week rather than daily, so check before crossing town.
-
Free
The Rolling Bridge at Merchant Square
Thomas Heatherwick's footbridge curls up into an octagon instead of lifting. It runs to a published timetable posted at the square, and the whole thing takes about three minutes.
-
Theatre From £25
Evening performance at the Apollo Victoria
An art deco cinema turned musical house, and one of the few West End auditoriums where the building is worth arriving early for. Straight across from the station.
-
Exhibitions From £25 Sold out
The Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum
Seventy metres of embroidery, in England for the first time in nearly a thousand years, in Room 30 until July. Every ticket to 31 December has gone. January to March goes on sale on 21 October.
-
Theatre From £30
Evening performance at the Menier Chocolate Factory
A small house in a Victorian factory that sends more work to the West End than its size suggests. The dinner and show ticket is decent value and the room seats under two hundred.
-
Exhibitions Advance fares vary
A weekend in the Cotswolds
Moreton-in-Marsh is ninety minutes direct from Paddington and you can walk out of the station into the countryside, which is not true of most of them. Book beds well ahead in summer.
-
Exhibitions Advance fares vary
A weekend in Bath
An hour and a half from Paddington. The whole city is a world heritage site, the baths are open until ten in summer, and everything is within twenty minutes on foot.
-
Food and drink Advance fares vary
A weekend on the Norfolk coast
Two hours to Norwich then a bus, or drive. Holkham is the beach everyone means and it is big enough to absorb a bank holiday. Seals at Blakeney, seen from a boat rather than the shore.
-
Sport From £4.50
Swimming in the Hampstead mixed pond
Open all year, lifeguarded, and colder than you are expecting from about October. The men's and ladies' ponds keep their own hours and their own rules.
-
Theatre
Young Vic: August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean
Until 10 Jul
August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean at Young Vic, Main House.
Friday
2 July-
Gigs From £70
BST Hyde Park
Until 11 Jul
Two weekends of headliners in the park with the Open House days free in between. Gates early afternoon, curfew is strict at half ten. Dates follow the usual July pattern.
-
Seasonal Free
Pride weekend in Soho
Until 4 Jul
Old Compton Street closes and the whole of Soho becomes the afterparty, which for many people is the actual event. Free, outdoors, and it goes very late on the Saturday.
Saturday
3 July-
Seasonal Free
Pride in London parade
A million people, from Hyde Park Corner down Piccadilly to Whitehall. Free from the pavement, and the stages in Soho and Trafalgar Square run into the evening after it passes.
Tuesday
6 July-
Gigs £19 in advance plus booking fee
The 100 Club: Tuesday Blues: Hamilton Loomis
Hamilton Loomis plays the 100 Club's blues series.
Friday
9 July-
Gigs From £75
Wireless Festival
Until 11 Jul
Three days of hip hop and R and B in Finsbury Park, and the one where the queue for the station afterwards is the real event. Dates follow the usual second weekend of July.
Friday
16 July-
Gigs From £8
BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Until 11 Sep
Eight weeks of concerts and the cheapest classical music in the country: promming tickets are a few pounds on the day, standing in the arena or the gallery. Queue from late afternoon.
Questions people ask
What are the best things to do in London in July?
Wimbledon runs to 11 July 2027, the BBC Proms begin in the middle of the month and run to September, and the big park festivals fill the weekends.
What are the free things to do in London in July?
Pride is free to watch and the South Bank runs free programming all summer, most of it outdoors. The free museums are open every day, and everything else free this month is marked on our free listings.
Can I still get into Wimbledon without a ticket?
Yes. It is one of very few major events where show court tickets and grounds passes are sold on the morning of play to people in the queue. The first week on the outside courts is the best value tennis in the country.
How do Proms tickets work?
Promming places are sold on the day for a few pounds, standing in the arena or the gallery. It is the cheapest way into world class classical music anywhere in London.
Is July busy in London?
The busiest month for visitors, so book anything ticketed well ahead and expect the free attractions to be full in the middle of the day.
Is there a bank holiday in July?
No. There is none between the end of May and the end of August.
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What is on right now
All 2189 listingsThis guide is rewritten each year before the dates come round. For what is actually happening this week rather than what happens every year, the listings below are dated, checked against the venue and carry the venue's own link.
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