A £5 swim on Hampstead Heath, free entry at the British Museum and Kenwood, a market open every day but Christmas. Prices checked against each venue this week.

Camden packs a market, a heath, a Georgian country house and several of the country’s national collections into one borough, and a surprising amount of it costs nothing. Every price and opening time below was checked against the venue’s own website on 14 August 2026, and anything that could not be verified this week has been left off rather than guessed at.

Bar chart of adult prices for Camden days out, from free at Hampstead Heath, the British Museum, Wellcome Collection, Kenwood House and Camden Market up to £13.50 at the Foundling Museum
Published adult prices, checked against each venue's own site on 14 August 2026. Chart by Camden Today.

Free, and worth a whole day

Hampstead Heath. Unmanicured parkland managed by the City of London Corporation, with the best free view in north London from the top of Parliament Hill. It is open all the time and costs nothing to walk on. The swimming is the part people travel for, and that is charged separately, below.

Kenwood House, Hampstead Lane, NW3. A Robert Adam interior and a collection including Rembrandt and Vermeer, sitting at the top of the Heath. English Heritage says “tickets to Kenwood are free but we recommend pre-booking to guarantee entry to the house”. The grounds are free and open regardless.

The British Museum, Great Russell Street, WC1B 3DG. Admission to the museum and its permanent collection is free, though you should book a free ticket in advance. Open daily 10:00 to 17:00, and until 20:30 on Fridays, with last entry an hour before close. It is a three-minute walk from Russell Square or Tottenham Court Road.

Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, NW1 2BE. Open 10:00 to 18:00, with free galleries, a free library and a free cloakroom. Its own site states that all permanent and temporary exhibitions and most events are free. It is directly opposite Euston station, which makes it the best rainy-hour option in the borough.

Kentish Town City Farm, 1 Cressfield Close (off Grafton Road), NW5 4BN. Open every day from 9.00am to 5.00pm, free entry, no booking required. A working farm with animals and a riding programme, a five-minute walk from Gospel Oak.

Primrose Hill. Free, always open, and the view south over the whole city is the one on the postcards. Reachable on foot from Chalk Farm.

Swimming on the Heath

The Hampstead Heath bathing ponds and Parliament Hill Lido are the only outdoor swimming in the borough, and they are charged. These are the City of London’s published prices, valid to 31 March 2027:

Hampstead Heath swimming prices, adult and concession, valid to 31 March 2027
Where and whenAdultConcession
Bathing ponds, all year round£5.00£3.00
Parliament Hill Lido, breakfast session£5.00£3.00
Parliament Hill Lido, morning or afternoon£8.80£5.20
Parliament Hill Lido, evening£5.00£3.00
Parliament Hill Lido, winter season£5.00£3.00

The ponds are open all year. Bookable sessions run only in the summer, from about the end of May to early September; outside those, you pay on entry. There is also a sauna at the Lido at £7.00 for adults, winter only, from October to May.

The market

Camden Market is free to walk around and open seven days a week including bank holidays. Its own site says the only day of the year it closes is Christmas Day, that most traders open 10am to 6pm, and that there are over a thousand shops, stalls, bars and cafés across the Lock, the Stables, North Yard and Hawley Wharf. North Yard restaurants stay open into the evening, and there is a Night Market on Thursdays with traders open until 9pm.

Getting there: Camden Town and Chalk Farm on the Northern line, or Camden Road on the Overground. The market’s own advice is not to drive, and it does not have a car park. Camden High Street outside the station is closed to motor vehicles anyway.

Museums that charge, and what you get

The Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, WC1N 1AZ. An adult ticket is £14.50, or £13.50 booked online, and it buys free entry for a whole year. The museum tells the story of the Foundling Hospital, Britain’s first children’s charity, and holds a Hogarth and Handel collection.

The Freud Museum, 20 Maresfield Gardens, NW3 5SX. Sigmund Freud’s last home, with his couch still in it. Open Wednesday to Sunday 10:30 to 17:00, and Mondays in August only. It is closed on Tuesdays, and closed on Bank Holiday Monday 31 August 2026, which catches people out.

Highgate Cemetery, Swains Lane, N6. Open 10am to 5pm every day until November. Admission is ticketed and it is worth booking, and groups must book to visit during the week. It is still an active burial ground, so visitors are asked to be quiet and orderly. Private tours are not offered at weekends.

Sport and swimming indoors

Talacre Community Sports Centre, Kentish Town reopened in June 2026 after a £5.4 million redevelopment, funded by Camden Council, the Local Regeneration Fund, the London Marathon Foundation and the HS2 Community and Business Funds. The refurbished centre has a new sports hall floor, a gymnastics space for younger and SEND users, an exercise studio, a community room, a café, a Changing Places facility and a new play area and park entrance. The council reported 110,000 visitors and a 15 per cent rise in memberships since the work. (Camden Council, 12 June 2026)

Where Camden ends, and what that rules out

Two of the attractions most people think of as Camden are not in the borough, and this is worth knowing if you are planning around a Camden postcode:

  • ZSL London Zoo and Regent’s Park are in Westminster, not Camden. The NW1 postcode misleads.
  • The London Canal Museum on New Wharf Road is in Islington, a few minutes east of King’s Cross.

They are all close enough to walk to. They are just not ours, and we would rather say so than pad the list.

A day out by neighbourhood

  • Hampstead and Highgate: the Heath, a pond swim, Kenwood, Highgate Cemetery, and the Freud Museum on the way back down.
  • Bloomsbury: the British Museum, the Foundling Museum and the Wellcome Collection, all within fifteen minutes’ walk of each other.
  • Camden Town and Chalk Farm: the market, the canal towpath and Primrose Hill.
  • King’s Cross: Coal Drops Yard, Granary Square and the Camley Street Natural Park, all on the Camden side of the boundary.

If you are travelling in from outside the borough, the fares and journey times from every Camden station are set out on a separate page here.

Frequently asked questions

What is there to do in Camden for free?

Hampstead Heath, Primrose Hill, Kenwood House, the British Museum, the Wellcome Collection, Kentish Town City Farm and Camden Market itself are all free to enter. Kenwood and the British Museum ask you to book a free ticket in advance.

How much does it cost to swim in the Hampstead Heath ponds?

£5.00 for an adult and £3.00 concession, all year round. Parliament Hill Lido is £8.80 for an adult morning or afternoon session in summer and £5.00 for a breakfast or evening session. Prices are valid to 31 March 2027.

Is Camden Market open every day?

Yes. Camden Market’s own site says it opens seven days a week including bank holidays, and Christmas Day is the only day of the year it closes. Most traders open 10am to 6pm.

Is London Zoo in Camden?

No. ZSL London Zoo is in Regent’s Park, which is in the City of Westminster, not the London Borough of Camden, despite the NW1 postcode.

What is there to do in Camden when it rains?

The British Museum, the Wellcome Collection, the Foundling Museum and the Freud Museum are all indoors, and Camden Market’s Stables and Hawley Wharf are largely under cover.

Sources

Opening times and prices change, particularly seasonally. Check the venue’s own site before you travel, and tell us at hello@camdentoday.co.uk if anything here has gone out of date.