13 Best Water Activities In Greater London

At two of them, plainly. London Fields Lido is a swimming pool in the open air, and Hampstead Ponds is open-water swimming with all the rules that come attached to it. The parks in this list are not swimming venues, whatever the heading implies. Everywhere else here, treat the water as scenery until the venue's own page tells you otherwise.

A lido is a built pool with sides, a bottom you can see and a lifeguard watching it. London Fields Lido is that. Hampstead Ponds is natural water, colder and darker, with its own entry rules and often a competence requirement. A child who swims happily in a pool is not automatically ready for a pond, and the ponds set their own limits on who may go in.

The parks, and that is not a consolation prize. Hyde Park, The Regents Park and Primrose Hill and Denham Country Park each give a small child water to look at, ducks to point at and ground to cover, with no swimming kit involved at any stage. Hampstead Heath London does the same, and free entry is what our records show for it. Save the lido and the ponds until they can swim properly.

Stubbers Adventure Centre belongs to the activity centres column and appears here because water activities are part of what it does — the sort involving kit, instruction and a session time rather than a towel and a change of clothes. It wants children old enough to take a briefing seriously. If you pictured an afternoon of splashing about, this is not it and the lido is the better answer.