Enjoyable as they are, looking after grandkids can be physically exhausting if you’re not as quick and nimble as you once were. Perhaps you feel that your days of squeezing yourself through a soft play tunnel or trudging around a crowded theme park, are safely behind you. If so, try some of these attractions for the young at heart...
1. Fulham Palace’s Nature Play Area
Best for: Nature and culture
Ah, the simple joys of a pile of logs. Using timber from onsite tree work, the palace team have come up with this brilliantly simple natural play space where kids can clamber and balance and get muddy in the gardens without disturbing the botanical collections.
The newly refurbished palace and gardens are free to enter. Moreover, there’s plenty to see after a major three-year £3.8m restoration project which has improved visitor access, created a new museum and breathed fresh life into key historic rooms.
Learn about the lives of those who once resided at this, the former principal home of the Bishop of London and have lunch in the drawing-room café, before letting off steam in the new play area.
Opening September 22
2. Battersea Park Zoo
Best for: Cute and cuddly
No big-name beasts at this family-run zoo, but its less showy residents – lemurs, meerkats, pygmy goats, monkeys and farm animals – are perfect for little ones.
There’s not too much walking and plenty of keeper-led entertainment, such as otter feeding and petting sessions. New this autumn is a chameleon, sheep and a new intake of bunnies, and there’s a host of Halloween craft activities planned for half-term.
3. Harry Potter Walking Tour
Best for: Getting kids walking
You’ll need a bit of energy for this self-guided tour around the capital, but you can select the bits that most interest you and go at your own pace.
It’s all there: the Leaky Cauldron, Gringotts Bank, Platform 9 3/4, the various mysterious ways to Diagon Alley. You can also discover the shop set up by two graphic artists who created several of the magical props used in the films.
This downloadable tour, devised by Blue Badge tour guide Richard Jones, is completely free and full of fascinating details – not only about JK Rowling’s creations, but also about the sights along the way, such as the 19th century gargoyles that scowl down on passersby from high on City rooftops – perfect for getting kids looking up at the world around them!
The walk starts outside Exit Three of Bank underground station, but you can pick it up at any point along the route. Do the tour in a single day – or spread it out over two.
5. Horniman Museum
Best for: Weird and wonderful
This whimsical little Forest Hill museum is full of extraordinary wonders for young and old. Home to a menagerie of stuffed animals (including an enormous walrus), an assortment of giant musical instruments and ancient sarcophagi, it also boasts a butterfly house and a little farm with alpaca, sheep and rabbits, plus crazy golf and an aquarium.
Entry is free (although there’s a small charge for the aquarium) and there are nature walks and twice-weekly ‘Curiosity Talks’ (Tues at 4 pm & Sat at 11.30 am), along with a ‘Hands-on Base’ gallery for touching the artefacts and a chance to meet specialists such as dinosaur expert, Dr Emma Nicholls (Oct 24, members only).
6. London Museum of Water and Steam
Best for: Awesome engineering
Perfect for young and old, this fascinating museum is based in the former Kew Bridge Waterworks and was revamped in 2014. It combines the history of London’s clean water supply with a superb collection of ancient steam engines, some of which are fired up for ride-ons at weekends and holidays.
Kids can crawl through tunnels and sewers and there’s lots of hands-on fun comparing clean and polluted water and experimenting with sluices and pumps.
Small and rarely busy, the museum has plenty to inspire memorable conversations of changing times. And starting this autumn is a new playgroup every Thursday morning –grandparents most welcome.
Tickets £9.90 for over 60s, £4.95 for 5-15 years