ListingsUpdated Sat 5 Sep
Free events in London right now
Everything on this site that costs nothing, from museum late openings to cemetery open days and the free half of the big festivals. Free does not always mean unticketed: where a free event still needs a booked slot, the listing says so.
Saturday
5 September-
Markets Free
Totally Thames: river festival, whole programme
Until 30 Sep
A month of walks, boat trips, art on the foreshore and one super-choir on the river. Most of it costs nothing and needs no booking.
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Exhibitions Free
Free entry: Museum of London Docklands
Until 30 Sep
A Georgian warehouse on the quay with the best account of the docks and the slave trade in the city. Always free, rarely busy on a weekday.
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Gigs Free
Southbank Centre: free foyer music
Until 27 Sep
Free live music in the Clore Ballroom most evenings, no ticket, and the bar overlooks the river. Turn up and sit on the steps.
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Gigs Free
Free lunchtime concert at St Martin-in-the-Fields
Until 25 Sep
Free classical recitals most weekday lunchtimes, no booking, retiring collection. Forty-five minutes and the best-value hour in central London.
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Free
The Italian Gardens, Kensington Gardens
Until 4 Sep
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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Sport Free
Towpath walk: Paddington Basin to Little Venice
Until 4 Sep
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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Free
The floating pocket park, Merchant Square
Until 4 Sep
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.
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Exhibitions Free
Free entry: the Natural History Museum
Until 4 Sep
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.
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Exhibitions Free
Free entry: the Science Museum
Until 4 Sep
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
Until 4 Sep
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.
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Free
Evening at the Brompton Oratory
Until 4 Sep
An enormous Italianate interior a minute from the museums, free to walk into, and almost always quiet. Sung services are listed on the door.
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Free
St James’s Park, free all day
Until 4 Sep
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.
