🍑 12 things to do in London this weekend with the kids (14–15 June)

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Hey DILFs!

Does a “hidden urban oasis” count as hidden if it has 377 Google reviews? Yeah, course it does. It’s London. Buckingham Palace has 182,000 reviews. The Shoreditch branch of Dishoom has 30,000. A destination with 377 reviews is basically classified intel.

That destination is Brown Hart Gardens – a raised public terrace just south of Oxford Street. Built on top of an old electricity substation, it’s now home to limestone decking, water features, plant-lit seating and a domed gazebo disguising the giant electrical box below.

Brilliantly, because it’s within the Grosvenor Estate, it’s subject to some particularly, umm, “unique” bylaws. You can’t be “intoxicated”, “unclean” or “in a verminous condition” – which is fair enough. But you’re also banned from “games, quarrelling, shouting, singing, and the practice of gymnastics” – and if you breach the rules, you’ll be prosecuted. 

Just thought I’d mention it because I’ve only just come across it, and it sounds like a lovely place for a pitstop. (Maybe save your cartwheels for Hyde Park, though.)

There’s tons more you can do this weekend besides not quarrelling: see below! 

Have a great weekend, 

Jeff xx

1: Pack a picnic for world-class classics in the Square

BMW Classics 2025
Sunday 15 June, 17:00–18:40
Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DS
FREE (no ticket required, but you’ll need to get there for about 15:45)
Age guidance: suitable for all

My eldest is suddenly obsessed with cars. I don’t know where it comes from: we don’t own a car, and I genuinely couldn’t tell you the difference between a hatchback and a whatever-the-car-that-isn’t-a-hatchback-is-called. He has a particular soft spot for Ferraris, though he keeps calling them “Referees” – so for a while I was thrilled he was finally into football. Nope. It’s cars. 

All of that is 100% true. What isn’t true is that BMW Classics 2025 has anything to do with actual cars – which is obviously where you assumed that anecdote was heading. I did too: when I saw the name, I genuinely thought it was a line-up of vintage 507s, E9s and Z8s (can you blame me?) and mentally prepared to be a good dad by taking my son along. And yes: of course I asked the internet for help with those car letter things. 

BMW Classics 2025 is, it turns out, something much more up my street – a free open-air concert in Trafalgar Square, hosted by the London Symphony Orchestra with their longtime sponsor, BMW Group (ohhh, that’s why). It all sounds jolly civilised: people sit on the floor, picnics are allowed, there are toilets, and it’s all wrapped up by 18:40. Perfect in every way.

I don’t think my son will mind it too much either – but I’ve promised him a trip to the Ferrari showroom to say sorry for messing with his dopamine levels over the car event/non-car event mix-up.

While you’re there… 

👍️ Is it a neoclassical Tardis? Is it a granite portaloo? No: it’s the smallest police station in the country! Back in the mid-1920s, Trafalgar Square had become a popular protest spot, and the Met wanted a base from which to keep an eye on all the shouty people. So in 1927 – after other plans for more visible structures were rejected by the public – they quietly hollowed out a lamppost and added a window and a direct phone line to Scotland Yard. One officer could fit inside at a time – and whenever they picked up the phone to call for help, the light at the top of the station would flash like a beacon, signalling to other nearby officers. 

These days it’s no longer a police station: it’s a supply cupboard for Westminster Council cleaners. So that’s what’s behind the tiny door these days: mops.

👍️ Cecil Court is a 17th-century lane chockablock with shops selling secondhand books, rare art finds and antiques. If you’re feeling like you haven’t spent enough money today because that damn concert was free, go here for very much non-free rare maps, first editions and vintage prints. 

2: Cheer on the boldest bottoms in central London

World Naked Bike Ride 2025
Saturday 14 June, various start times
Various start locations – see website
FREE (to watch or participate)

Time goes by so quickly. It feels like only yesterday that – after promoting the 2024 World Naked Bike Ride in one of my very first Dads in London newsletters – I received this irate email from a new reader:

DISGUSTED?? Bit much.

Anyway, I emailed him back to say:

He never replied – but he remained subscribed. And, according to my stats, he still opens 75% of my emails. Whether that’s curiosity, quiet enjoyment or sheer stubbornness, who can say. Let’s see if this one pushes him over the edge.

In the meantime, I feel behoven to let you know that the World Naked Bike Ride is not the sort of thing that ought to disgust anyone. It’s a protest against car culture, global oil dependency and the lack of cyclists’ rights, and it’s also a “celebration of body freedom” and a cheerful afternoon on two wheels. It’s a lot to champion in half a day, especially with all the inevitable chafing. But still: it’s a very fun and silly, very innocent day out – whether you’re cycling in the buff or watching/cringing/laughing from the sidelines.

Full details are on the World Naked Bike Ride Facebook page – including starting locations and timings. Do keep an eye out for any changes… because as noble as the cause may be, being naked and abandoned outside the Deptford Co-op is a hard one to explain to your neighbours.

While you’re there… 

👍️ If you’ve even heard of the Seven Noses of Soho – let alone tried to find them – please accept my metaphorical approving grunt. The project began in 1997, when artist Rick Buckley created 35 plaster casts of his own nose and stuck them to prominent buildings around London. It was a quiet protest against the rise of CCTV and the creeping presence of Big Brother – placing a nose, quite literally, under the nose of the surveillance state. 

Most of the noses have been removed, but seven (duh!) remain for you to seek out and take Leaning Tower-esque photos with – but with your finger poking around for a bogey rather than holding up a building. 

My family and I have found three noses so far, and it’s harder than you’d think – even with the assistance of multiple blog posts, videos and maps. So if I were you, I’d incorporate some snout-spotting into a day when you’ll already be in the area (rather than, like me, as a dedicated family outing to celebrate my birthday).  

Even if you don’t fancy it, read up on the history and some of the wild conspiracy theories – they’re so much fun. 

3: Design your own bonkersly brilliant umbrella house

Family Day: Build your own Umbrella House
Saturday 14 June, 12:00–16:00
Zaha Hadid Foundation, 10 Bowling Green Lane, EC1R 0BQ
FREE (but booking is required)
Age guidance: 0–10

Some houses have walls. Some even have hallways. Some have decorative geckos stuck to the bathroom tiles. The Umbrella House, built in Japan in 1961, had none of these things: it was just one big roof and a single room underneath it.

Designed by Kazuo Shinohara – who believed a home should feel like a work of art rather than a white goods showroom with a mortgage – the house rejected both traditional Japanese layouts and Western-style efficiency. It had no plan for your furniture, your privacy or your everyday life – but it changed architectural history by treating the house as a calm and clever structure rather than an arrangement of rectangles pretending to be a home.

This free family workshop picks up that idea and runs with it. You’re invited to build your own cardboard version of the Umbrella House – which is guaranteed to highlight the difficulties in creating a structure with such a bloody ginormous roof.  Architects and educators will be around to explain what made the original so radical, and to reassure you that yes, collapsing creations are very much part of the process.

While you’re there.. 

👍️ The event takes place at the Zaha Hadid Foundation, which is where the internationally acclaimed architect worked from until she died in 2016. It contains over 15,000 works – and surely that includes her designs for the Aquatics Centre at the 2012 London Olympics??

I’m not sure how much of the building will be open during the Umbrella House event, but even a glimpse is probably worth it. It’s not every day you get to hang out in the office of someone who redefined what a curve could do.

4: Wander into London’s oldest church (and maybe some art)

Slipping The Veil: A contemporary art exhibition in London’s oldest church
Saturday 14 June, 10:00–17:00
Saint Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, EC1A 9DS
FREE

I can’t begin to tell you how reluctant I am to recommend this art exhibition – and it’s not for that annoyingly clichéd reason of “wanting to keep it a secret so I can enjoy it for myself”. No: I’m reluctant because I don’t like rewarding pretentious artspeak with free publicity. Exhibit A, from the exhibition’s website:

“... these fragments coalesce into something larger than the sum of their parts, something monolithic yet alive, as if the building itself breathes and listens. And in its emptiness, it doesn’t feel empty at all. Rather, it becomes a container for memory, for resonance, a conduit that invites the past into the present, creating an awareness that is both human and somehow beyond.”

Good grief.

I’d quote more, but the minuscule font (scroll down a bit) made my eyes ache. Do they think tiny text makes it look classy? It doesn’t.

And yet. I still have to mention this whatever-it-is exhibition, because it’s in one of London’s best (and most under-the-radar) buildings: St Bartholomew the Great, which is the city’s oldest surviving church. Founded in 1123 and a rare Norman survivor of the Great Fire of 1666, it’s now a sort of architectural pick ’n’ mix, thanks to a few Gothic, Tudor and Baroque add-ons over the centuries.

Benjamin Franklin once worked in a print shop just around the corner, and – if that doesn’t get your nose twitching – the church has appeared in Four Weddings, Shakespeare in Love and The Crown.

As for the exhibition itself… I tried. I really bloody tried to understand what the blurb was banging on about. All I know is there’ll be large-scale installations – though after squinting through the website, I’m not convinced they’re to be trusted with sizing. 

There are also immersive sound and words from Nick Cave – a man who’s never knowingly cheered anyone up, but is still quite the coup. And there’ll be “monumental interventions into the space” alongside “sculptural interventions”. I don’t know what that means. Admit it: you don’t either.

Basically: go for the church, and possibly stay for the art, which might be fabulous or might be awful. We have no way of knowing.

While you’re there… 

👍️ Postman’s Park is a beautiful little pocket park nearby, which opened in 1880 and was a popular lunchtime garden with workers from the nearby Old General Post Office. It’s also home to the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, which commemorates “ordinary people who died saving the lives of others and who might otherwise have been forgotten”. The history of the memorial is super interesting, if you’re up for a quick read. 

5: Watch a myth-making duo go completely off-script

The Story Forge: Make Your Own Myth
Sunday 15 June, 11:00 and 14:00
artsdepot, 5 Nether Street, Tally Ho Corner, N12 0GA
£12.75 per person
Age guidance: 6+

As a default “No, but…” kind of person, I wish I could be more like the improv community. To be able to “Yes, and…” your way through a performance – let alone life – must feel like a superpower. Take, for example, the moment your child announces that their mummy train has a baby train that likes to drink chocolate milk and wishes to fly to the moon on the back of an empty packet of Organix Melty Carrot Puffs. Wouldn’t you love to be able to say, right off the cuff, “Great – let’s check the weather forecast for lunar landings. Do you know if the packet has seatbelts?”

Maybe you already are that sort of person. That’s fine: it just means you’ll wish you were on stage rather than in the audience at The Story Forge – a super-creative performance in which two loopy doctors invent brand new myths according to audience suggestions. There are also “epic cardboard props”, which are brought to life in various bonkers ways – with plenty of chances for children to join in, and for parents to practise the fine art of going along with whatever happens next.

6–12: More more more! 

London is BUZZING this weekend. Here are some other things you can do: 

Family studio: cardboard figures
Sunday 15 June, 11:00–13:00 and 14:00–16:00
Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD
FREE
Age guidance: suitable for all

Puss in Boots (ballet)
Saturday 14 June, 15:00
The Questors Theatre, 12 Mattock Lane, W5 5BQ
£10–£14
Age guidance: 2–14

Serpentine Pavilion 2025: A Capsule in Time by Marina Tabassum
Daily from now until 26 October
Beside Serpentine South, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA
FREE

Serpentine Play Pavilion
Daily from now until 10 August
Beside Serpentine South, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA
FREE

Family Silent Disco
Saturday 14 June, 10:00–12:00
Big Penny Social, 1 Priestley Way, E17 6AL
£3 per person
Age guidance: suitable for all

Boppin’ Bunnies
Saturday 14 June, 10:45
Woolwich Works, The Fireworks Factory, 11 No. 1 Street, SE18 6HD
Adults £5.50, child £11, additional child (5+) £5.50
Age guidance: 0–5

Family activities at Guildhall Art Gallery: exploring colour mixing and the use of rainbows
Saturday 14 June, 11:00–16:00
Guildhall Art Gallery, Guildhall Yard, EC2V 5AE
FREE (but you’ll need to book)
Age guidance: 3–11