Richmond
Terrace Gardens · Photo: Amandajm
Climb from Richmond town through the sloping Terrace Gardens, take in the long view from King Henry's Mound in Pembroke Lodge's gardens, lunch on the tea-room terrace and then spend the afternoon on the open grassland of Richmond Park looking for red and fallow deer. A big-sky outdoor day.
Nature & gardens · 10:00–11:00 (1h)
Lawns, a rockery, rose garden and an old ice house. Cafe and toilets here.
Sloping formal gardens on Richmond Hill with lawns, a rockery, a rose garden, a pool with an Aphrodite statue and an old ice house. The cafe and toilets make it a comfortable stop between Richmond town and the famous view from the top of the hill.
Photo: Amandajm
Food stop · 11:15–13:00 (1h45m)
Walk the gardens to King Henry's Mound and its protected view to St Paul's, then lunch in the tea rooms looking west over the Thames Valley.
A Georgian house at the highest point of Richmond Park whose tea rooms and terrace look west over the Thames Valley. Its gardens lead to King Henry's Mound, with its protected long view to St Paul's. A natural lunch or cake stop on a Richmond Park walk, with free parking next door.
Photo: Patche99z
Park · 13:15–15:45 (2h30m)
Open grassland and woods with around 600 free-roaming deer. Watch from a distance.
An outdoor park in Richmond.
Photo: Stefan Czapski
Food stop · 16:00–16:30 (30m)
Back past Pembroke Lodge for a drink before heading down to Richmond.
A Georgian house at the highest point of Richmond Park whose tea rooms and terrace look west over the Thames Valley. Its gardens lead to King Henry's Mound, with its protected long view to St Paul's. A natural lunch or cake stop on a Richmond Park walk, with free parking next door.
Photo: Patche99z
LondonStratford / Bow / Hackney
Two of east London's biggest green spaces in one dry day: playgrounds and wildflower gardens in the Olympic Park, a picnic, then a walk across to Victoria Park for its boating lake and play areas, finishing with a weekend snack on Broadway Market.
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park → Victoria Park Tower Hamlets → Broadway Market
LondonSouth Kensington
Dinosaurs in the morning, a garden picnic at lunchtime and hands-on science in the afternoon, all within a five-minute walk of each other and all free to enter. Because everything is indoors except the V&A garden, it holds up in any weather.
The Natural History Museum → Victoria and Albert Museum → Science Museum
LondonGreenwich
Walk beneath the copper hull of a Victorian tea clipper, graze the street-food stalls at the covered market, peek up the spiral stairs of the Queen's House and finish by climbing Greenwich Park for the view across to Canary Wharf. Everything is in one compact riverside town centre.
Cutty Sark Clipper Ship → Greenwich Market → Queen's House → Greenwich Park
