Things to Do in London When It Rains: Stay Dry Properly

It rains in London about one day in three, and every guide to things to do in London when it rains sends you to the same paid attractions on the basis that they have a roof. That is the wrong filter.

The right one is this: which places are dry from the moment you leave the train to the moment you get back on it. A museum with a forty minute queue outside is not an indoor day, and several of the most recommended ones are exactly that.

The best answer to rain in London is also the cheapest, which is the other thing nobody says.

This page covers both halves of an indoor day: the free museums, and the indoor activities that are not museums, with what each one costs and the opening days that catch people out. Those opening days are the real trap. Two free museums two minutes apart in Holborn are shut on opposite days of the week, and one of the best is open afternoons only.

The tunnel almost nobody uses

This is the single best rainy day fact in London and it is not on any of the lists.

The South Kensington subway

Address

From inside South Kensington Underground station, SW7

Nearest

South Kensington, on the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines

Hours

Station hours

Price

Free

Standing

A pedestrian tunnel running from the station to the museum quarter

How to get in

Follow the signs inside the station rather than going up to the street. The subway runs underground to the Science Museum, Imperial College, the Natural History Museum and the V and A, takes about four minutes on foot and avoids the busy roads entirely. It is step free into the Natural History Museum's Central Entrance by the Subway Gate. The lighting is low, sound echoes, and it fills with school groups in term time.

Three world class museums, all free, reachable from the tube without going outside. Most people come up the station stairs, stand at a crossing in the rain and then queue at a main entrance, which is a worse version of the same afternoon.

What is actually dry, end to end

Where	Dry from the train?	Booking
Natural History Museum	Yes, via the subway	Advised, not required
V and A	Yes, via the subway	Walk in
Science Museum	Yes, via the subway	Pre-book a free ticket
Tate Modern	No, a walk from Southwark	Walk in
The British Museum	No, a short street walk	Walk in
Wellcome Collection	Barely, it faces Euston station	Walk in, closed Mondays
Covent Garden Piazza	Covered once you are in it	None

The Wellcome Collection deserves the special mention. It sits directly opposite Euston station, it is free, it has no paid exhibition at all, and on a wet Tuesday it is close to empty. The free museums page has the full list with hours and which of them want a booked ticket anyway.

Where you will still get wet

Anything with a timed outdoor queue. The famous paid attractions along the river manage their crowds outside the building, which on a wet afternoon means standing in it.

Rooftop anything. Obvious, and people still book it. If you have a booking at height and the cloud is down, you are paying a premium to look at weather rather than at London. The view restaurants page explains why a river view is the bad weather booking and a thirtieth floor is not.

The parks, with one exception. Richmond and Hampstead are wonderful in the rain if you are dressed for it and miserable if you are not. The exception is the swimming, which is unaffected: you were going to be wet anyway.

The indoor afternoon that is not a museum

A covered market. Covent Garden’s Piazza is roofed once you are inside it, and Greenwich Market is covered end to end, which makes it the better of the two on a genuinely wet day. Leadenhall Market in the City is a Victorian arcade with a painted roof and almost nobody in it at weekends.

A pub with a fire. This is what the city does with its own weather, and it is not a consolation prize. The oldest pubs are mostly small dark rooms built for exactly this.

Afternoon tea. Two hours, indoors, booked, and the rain becomes somebody else’s problem. The afternoon tea page compares every grand hotel on what you actually pay.

Indoor activities that are not a museum

The museums are the free answer and the right one for most wet afternoons. But a wet day with a
group, or with teenagers, or with anybody who has already done the V and A, needs something with a
scoreboard. These are the indoor activities worth booking, with what they actually cost and the
rules that decide whether they work for your party.

The cheapest way in

Electric Shuffle publishes from £10 per person for groups of two to
thirty two, across four shuffleboard games with food and drink brought to the table. Three London
sites: King’s Cross, London Bridge and Canary Wharf. Shuffleboard is the right choice for a
mixed group because anybody can play it immediately and it does not need a throwing arm.

Hijingo in Shoreditch runs £10 Sunday sessions, which is bingo rebuilt as
a light show. It is closed on Mondays, which is the detail that wastes a journey,
and it is over 18s at every hour it opens.

The one that takes all ages

F1 Arcade in St Paul’s is the exception in a category that is mostly adults
only. All ages are welcome until 6pm, and racers must be at least
seven years old. Open Monday to Wednesday noon to 11pm, Thursday and Friday noon to 1am, Saturday 10am to 1am and
Sunday 10am to 11pm, so it opens earlier at the weekend than almost anything else here.

If you have a wet Saturday and children over seven, that is the booking. Hijingo is over 18s, and
several other operators switch to over 18s later in the evening, so read the venue rather
than the category.

Darts, and a crazy golf course arriving in October

Flight Club has four London sites: Bloomsbury, Islington, Shoreditch and
Victoria. Automatic scoring means nobody argues about arithmetic and it is genuinely
playable by people who cannot throw a dart.

Ted’s Crazy Golf was due to open on Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch this October, and its website has since been suspended,
taking over from Junkyard Golf at the London end: two nine hole indoor courses, a diner attached,
open Tuesday to Thursday 4pm to 11pm, Friday to 11:30pm, Saturday noon to 11:30pm and Sunday noon
to 8pm, with last golf an hour before close. The activity bars
page has the full set with the age policies, which contradict each other.

An afternoon at the cinema, at two very different prices

Rain is what cinemas are for, and the gap between London’s cheapest good one and its most
comfortable is larger than people expect.

The Prince Charles Cinema off Leicester Square is the cheap one and it is not a
compromise. Membership is £15 a year and buys £8
weekday matinees, at least £2.50 off every ticket, and access to its regular
£1 screenings. Six visits and the membership has paid for itself.

The Electric Portobello is the expensive one and the seats are the point. Its booking page publishes the prices in full. For non-members it is 15 pounds for an armchair before 5pm on a weekday, 20 Monday to Thursday evenings and 25 on Friday evenings and all weekend, with a Front Row Bed for two at 30 to 40 and a Back Row Sofa for two at 40 to 50. It takes no cash, and every ticket is final and non-refundable.

Two published rules at the Electric that catch people out on exactly this kind of afternoon.
The bar closes when the main feature starts, and the auditorium and bar only open
fifteen minutes before the programme time, so the pre-film drink is a narrow window. And
it takes no cash at all.

The small museums, which are better than the big ones in the rain

The national collections are enormous and on a wet Saturday so are the crowds. The small free
museums are the better wet day and they are almost all in Bloomsbury and Holborn, within ten minutes
of each other. The catch is that their opening days disagree, so read them individually.

Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Free, no booking,
walk in. Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, closed Monday and Tuesday but open on
bank holidays. The hinged picture room walls are opened to a timetable rather than on request:
2pm for A Rake’s Progress, and 11am, 3pm and 4pm for the south wall recess.
Arrive between those and the room is just a room.

The Hunterian Museum, on the same square. Free, Tuesday to Saturday 10am
to 5pm, and closed on bank holidays, which is the exact opposite of the
Soane a two minute walk away. There is a free curator’s tour every Wednesday at 2:15pm, twelve
places, first come first served.

The Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL. Free, no booking, and
afternoons only: Tuesday to Saturday, 1pm to 5pm. One room, 100,000 specimens, and
about twenty minutes.

The Wallace Collection, Marylebone. Free to the permanent collection and
open daily from 10am, which makes it the reliable Monday answer when the Soane and
the Hunterian are both shut. A major collection hung in a house, with a glazed courtyard restaurant
in the middle of it, which is a very good place to sit out a downpour.

The Postal Museum, Clerkenwell, Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 5pm. Not free, but the
ticket is an annual pass: unlimited entry for a year from the date of your visit, plus one ride on
Mail Rail. Note the museum and Mail Rail are in separate buildings on opposite sides of
Phoenix Place, so there is a wet crossing in the middle of it.

Unique things to do in London covers these in
detail along with the Barbican Conservatory, which is free but now ticketed with day tickets
released at 9:30am on each opening day.

One more indoor sport worth knowing about. Four of the twelve courts at Rocks Lane Chiswick are covered, and The Padel Yard in Wandsworth has indoor courts, which makes padel one of the few genuinely athletic wet weather options in London. The covered courts go first between November and March, and non members can only book one day ahead.

Warm water, which is the underrated wet day

Getting wetter on purpose is a perfectly good answer to rain, and the heated pools are open all
year.

The Oasis Sports Centre in Holborn is a heated 27.5 metre outdoor pool in the
middle of central London, and the building started life as a Turkish bath in 1728.
London Fields Lido is heated and fifty metres, and Pools on the Park in
Richmond is heated, floodlit after dark and maintained at 25 degrees. Swimming outdoors in
the rain in a heated pool is one of the better things this city offers and it costs a few pounds.
Our lidos guide has which are heated and which are not, because the
difference decides the afternoon.

At the other end, a spa day is the full version: thermal floors,
saunas and cold plunges, mostly sold as a day pass without a room booking.

How to plan a wet day, and the best things to do in London when it rains

Pick one area, not one building. South Kensington is the only place in London where three major museums are connected underground. Everywhere else, every change of mind costs you a walk in the rain.

Book the ticketed things before you leave. The Science Museum needs a free ticket booked ahead, and discovering that at the door in the rain is the worst version of this day.

Go late. The V and A opens until 10pm on Fridays and Tate Modern until 9pm on Friday and Saturday. Wet evenings are the emptiest these buildings ever are.

Check the closing day before the closing time. This is the single most common way an indoor day fails in London. Sir John Soane’s is shut Monday and Tuesday. The Hunterian is shut Sunday, Monday and bank holidays. The Grant Museum opens at 1pm. Hijingo is shut Mondays. The Wallace Collection and F1 Arcade are the two that open every day.

Book the activity, walk into the museum. Every activity bar on this page works on timed slots and weekend walk-in availability is close to zero. The museums are the opposite: free, walk in, and busiest in the middle of a wet Saturday afternoon, which is exactly when the activity venues are full.

Everything here was taken from each venue’s own published information and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Opening hours and booking policies change. Confirm before you travel.

Immersive experiences are mostly indoors and mostly ticketed, and London has more of them than any city in Europe.

The best bookshops in London are the other reliable indoor afternoon, and Daunt Marylebone runs until half past seven six days a week.

Where to go next

The Natural History Museum is free and indoors, with two paid exhibitions that are worth it on a wet day.

Free museums in London has the full list with opening hours and which need a booked ticket, and free things to do in London covers the rest of what costs nothing.

Before you write off a month for the weather, check the actual figures. On the Met Office thirty year averages, London’s driest month is March and February is drier than August, with less than a factor of two between the driest month and the wettest across the whole year. The best time to visit has the month by month table, and what really collapses in winter is daylight rather than rain.

The Harry Potter Studio Tour is three and a half hours entirely indoors with no time limit once you are inside, which makes it the strongest wet day booking outside the museums, although it has to be booked ahead and cannot be bought at the door.

The board game cafes are the wet afternoon nobody writes down, and both of the two worth travelling for charge admission on top of what you eat.

Things to do in central London covers a day without the weather constraint, and the pubs cover where to end one.

Questions we get asked

What is there to do in London when it rains?

The free national museums, and the best of them are connected to the tube underground. A pedestrian subway runs from inside South Kensington station to the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the V and A, about four minutes on foot with no roads to cross, so you can spend a whole wet day across three world class collections without going outside. All three are free.

What can you do in London on a rainy day for free?

Every national museum has a free permanent collection: the British Museum, the National Gallery, the V and A, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, Tate Modern, the Imperial War Museum and the Wellcome Collection among them. The Wellcome, opposite Euston station, is the one with no paid exhibition at all and is close to empty on a wet weekday.

Which London museums can you reach without going outside?

The three in South Kensington. The pedestrian subway from South Kensington Underground station leads to the Science Museum, Imperial College, the Natural History Museum and the V and A, and gives step free access into the Natural History Museum's Central Entrance at the Subway Gate. Follow the signs inside the station rather than going up to street level.

What should you avoid doing in London in the rain?

Anything with a timed outdoor queue, and anything at height. The paid attractions along the river hold their crowds outside the building, which on a wet day means standing in it. A rooftop bar or a thirtieth floor restaurant in low cloud is a premium paid to look at weather, and the booking is usually not refundable.

Is Covent Garden covered?

The Piazza is, once you are inside it: the Apple Market and Jubilee Market sit under the old market roof. Getting to it is the wet part, and Covent Garden station runs exit only at busy times, so on a rainy Saturday you may be walking from Leicester Square anyway. Greenwich Market is covered more thoroughly and is the better wet weather market.

How often does it rain in London?

Often enough to plan around and far less dramatically than the reputation suggests. London gets rain on roughly a third of days, usually light and rarely all day, which is why Londoners carry a coat rather than an umbrella and why the indoor options here are built for regular use rather than for emergencies.

What indoor activities are there in London?

Beyond the free museums, the main ones are the competitive socialising venues and the cinemas. Electric Shuffle publishes from 10 pounds a head for shuffleboard across three London sites, Hijingo runs 10 pound Sunday bingo sessions in Shoreditch, Flight Club does darts at four London sites, and F1 Arcade in St Paul’s runs racing simulators. Ted’s Crazy Golf was due to open indoors in Shoreditch this October, but its website is now suspended, so check before you go. All of them work on timed slots and need booking at weekends.

What indoor activities in London work for children?

F1 Arcade in St Paul’s is the one to know, because it welcomes all ages until 6pm, with racers at least seven. Most of the rest of the category is adults only: Hijingo is over 18s at every hour it opens, and several operators switch to over 18s later in the evening. The free museums are the other answer, and the Science Museum and Natural History Museum are reachable from South Kensington station without going outside.

What is there to do indoors in London when everything is shut on a Monday?

Monday is when London’s small museums close and it catches people out constantly. Sir John Soane’s is shut Monday and Tuesday, the Hunterian is shut Sunday and Monday, and Hijingo is shut Mondays. What is open: the Wallace Collection, free and daily from 10am, the big national museums, F1 Arcade from noon, and the cinemas. The Prince Charles Cinema sells 8 pound weekday matinees to members.

How much do indoor activities in London cost?

Less at the bottom and more at the top than people expect. The national museums and the small free ones cost nothing. Electric Shuffle starts at 10 pounds a head and Hijingo runs 10 pound Sunday sessions. A weekday afternoon armchair at the Electric Portobello is 15 pounds and the same seat at the weekend is 25, with a sofa for two reaching 50. Prince Charles Cinema membership is 15 pounds a year and brings matinees down to 8.