Hampstead Heath swimming drops bookings on Monday, and goes cashless in October

From Monday 7 September you cannot book a swim on Hampstead Heath. The online system closes that day and does not reopen until spring 2027, and until then every session at the Parliament Hill Lido and at the three bathing ponds is pay or tap on arrival.

For most of the year that is how the Heath worked anyway. Booking only ever ran through the summer, roughly late May to early September, and it existed because hot weather filled the ponds faster than the gate could handle. What goes on Monday is the 8pm release and the seven day window, which leaves turning up as the only way in. Capacity still applies, so a warm Saturday can still close a gate in front of you. There is just no longer a way to get ahead of it.

The second change is how you pay

From 1 October the swimming facilities take card and phone only. No cash. Worth knowing before you walk up to the ponds with a fiver in your pocket, which until this month was a perfectly good plan.

Since everyone is now paying at the gate, the prices matter more than they did. The bathing ponds are £5, or £3 concession and under 16s, and that is the same all year. The Lido in winter is £5, £3 concession, £1.50 for 5 to 15s, and the winter sauna is £7. Summer mornings and afternoons at the Lido are the expensive slot at £8.80. The City of London holds these to 31 March 2027, so if you are reading this after that, check before you go.

The light is going, and the gates close with it

This is the part people get caught by. Pond hours track the daylight and they step down every few weeks from here. Last entry is 5.45pm from 13 September, then 4.45pm from 11 October, then 2pm from 25 October, which is a different activity altogether. The Lido summer season ends on 27 September.

Not all the water is open all year. Parliament Hill Lido, the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond and the Highgate Men’s Pond run through the winter. The Hampstead Mixed Pond is April to October only and then shuts, so if the mixed pond is the one you like, you have weeks rather than months.

The bit almost nobody mentions

Mobility scooters are free on the Heath, Monday to Saturday, 9.30am to 5pm, from the Parliament Hill Lido or the Hive, booked through Heath Hands. There are accessible toilets at five points including Parliament Hill and Golders Hill Park, disabled bays in all four car parks, and a step free route that starts and ends at Gospel Oak station. A carer accompanying a disabled swimmer aged 16 or over goes in free and does not need to book.

What else is up there

It is 800 acres and genuinely wild in places. The City counts 180 species of bird on it, 650 kinds of wildflower, nine species of bat, 25 butterflies and around 400 veteran trees, along with more than 30 ponds and lakes. Muntjac deer live on it. So do hedgehogs. There is an avian flu warning in force nationally at the moment, so do not hand feed the birds and keep dogs away from them, which is worth remembering if you are walking a dog up there.

The Heath also has its own police force and its own laws. Forty seven byelaws, written in 1932 and still enforced, by a constabulary that patrols seven days a week from 11am to 10pm for most of the year. They are mostly common sense. Swimming outside the advertised hours is not one of the ones they are relaxed about.

Making a day of it

The obvious pairing is a swim and then the walk up to the Parliament Hill viewpoint, one of the free views of London that needs no ticket and no booking at any time of year. Kenwood House sits on the northern edge with a Rembrandt self portrait in it and no admission charge. The Spaniards Inn is on the lane between Hampstead and Highgate for afterwards.

Everything we list up there is on the Hampstead Heath page and across Hampstead. For session times, water temperatures and the prices as they stand on the day you read this, the City of London Corporation manages the Heath and publishes all of it on its swimming pages.