In this guide
London gets less rain than Rome. What it gets is drizzle — many light days rather than a few heavy ones — which means the answer is rarely “stay in” and usually “go somewhere covered”.
Almost everything here is free.
💡 The Short Version: Every national museum is free and indoors. Leadenhall, Seven Dials and Covent Garden’s halls are covered markets. The Barbican Conservatory is a tropical garden inside a concrete tower. The Silver Vaults are underground. And Babylon Park in Camden is three floors below street level.
📘 How we choose these (editorial note). No paid placements. These are drawn from a wide spread of sources rather than any single list - the food and travel press, the big listings sites, independent blogs and specialists, video, and what Londoners recommend themselves - and cross-referenced against each other. Everything here is genuinely indoors or covered — not “mostly sheltered”. Free means free at the door.
Free and indoors
Every national museum costs nothing, which makes this the easiest problem in London to solve.
- British Museum — the Great Court alone is worth an hour.
- Natural History and Science Museums — next door to each other in South Kensington, and connected by a tunnel from the Tube station so you can arrive dry.
- Tate Modern — plus a free tenth-floor view that is better in bad weather than good, because you can see the weather coming.
- National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery — both on Trafalgar Square.
- V&A — the largest of them and the easiest to lose an afternoon in.
- Wellcome Collection, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Young V&A — smaller, stranger, free.
Covered markets
Eat, shop and stay dry.
- Leadenhall Market, City — 1881 wrought iron under a painted roof. Weekdays only.
- Seven Dials Market, Covent Garden — two floors of food traders in a former banana warehouse.
- Covent Garden’s market halls — the 1830 building, glass-roofed since the 1870s.
- Old Spitalfields Market — a covered Victorian hall with a different theme each day.
- Borough Market — largely covered, and Tuesday and Wednesday are pleasant rather than crushed.
- Battersea Power Station — 150 shops and restaurants inside Gilbert Scott’s building.
Underground
- The London Silver Vaults, Holborn — a vault complex under Chancery Lane with fifty dealers and the world’s largest collection of antique silver for sale. Free.
- Babylon Park, Camden — three underground storeys including London’s only indoor rollercoaster. Free to enter, pay per ride.
- Mail Rail, Bloomsbury — a miniature train through the Post Office’s own tunnels.
- London’s Roman Amphitheatre — free, in the Guildhall Art Gallery basement.
- Greenwich foot tunnel — walk under the Thames. Free, and genuinely dry.
Warm and strange
- Barbican Conservatory — around 1,500 species of plants and trees inside the theatre’s concrete fly tower. Free, but it opens on selected dates only and needs a timed ticket, released online from 9.30am on the day.
- Kew’s glasshouses — the Palm House and Temperate House are heated, enormous and humid.
- SEA LIFE London Aquarium, South Bank — indoors, and the shark tunnel does not care about the weather.
- The Attendant, Fitzrovia — coffee in a Victorian public lavatory.
A long lunch
Rain is the correct excuse for a proper meal.
- Afternoon tea — timed, indoors and two hours long. See the guide below.
- Dim sum — Royal China, Tao Tao Ju or Dragon Castle, all indoors and built for lingering.
- A Wetherspoons in an extraordinary building — The Crosse Keys is a 1913 banking hall and a pint costs less than the museum café.
- Sunday roast — the single best wet-afternoon plan in Britain.
Cinema
- Prince Charles Cinema — 35mm, all-night marathons, and cheap membership.
- BFI Southbank — the deepest repertory programme in the country, and the Mediatheque is free.
- Peckhamplex — current releases for a few pounds.
- The Electric, Notting Hill — leather armchairs and footstools, if you would rather be comfortable than cheap.
Whole days indoors without going outside
A few places in London are big enough to spend a full wet day in without stepping out at all.
The Barbican is the best of them: two art galleries, three cinemas, a concert hall, a theatre, a library, a conservatory full of tropical plants open on selected dates, and a network of raised walkways connecting the lot. You can arrive at Barbican station and not see weather again until you leave.
The V&A is 145 galleries across seven floors and a courtyard café in the world’s first museum restaurant. The British Museum’s Great Court is covered by the Foster roof and is a genuinely pleasant place to sit and wait out a shower.
Somerset House links the courtyard, the Courtauld and a warren of rooms under one roof, and the Southbank Centre runs from the Royal Festival Hall through to the Hayward with cover most of the way.
Swimming pools and Turkish baths
Rain stops mattering once you are already wet.
The Porchester Spa in Bayswater is the one to know: an Art Deco Turkish bath from 1929, run by the council, with three hot rooms, a Russian steam room, a plunge pool and an ice room, at a fraction of a private spa. Single-sex days most of the week.
London Fields Lido is heated to 25°C and open all year — swimming outdoors in the rain is one of the better things you can do in this city, and the pool is emptiest in bad weather.
Bookshops you can lose an hour in
Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street is the famous one, with its Edwardian oak galleries and skylight, and books arranged by country rather than genre.
Foyles on Charing Cross Road runs to five floors with a café at the top. Persephone Books in Bloomsbury reprints forgotten women writers with endpapers taken from period fabrics. Word on the Water, the canal-boat bookshop moored at Granary Square, has a wood stove and a roof, which is exactly what is wanted.
What to know
- Museums are quietest in the last two hours before closing, and everyone else has the same rainy-day idea at 11am.
- South Kensington station connects by tunnel to the Natural History, Science and V&A museums. You never go outside.
- Leadenhall Market and the Silver Vaults are weekday-only.
- The Barbican Conservatory opens on selected dates and needs a free timed ticket, released online from 9.30am that morning. Check the listing before travelling.
- The Tube is warm and dry and half of central London is walkable underground if you plan it.
Continue planning your London trip
- 🏛️ The Best Museums in London
- 🎪 Free Things to Do in London
- 🎬 London’s Best Independent Cinemas
- 🫖 The Best Afternoon Tea in London
- 👨👩👧 London With Children
- 🛍️ London Markets by Day
Common questions
What can you do in London when it rains?
The national museums are free and indoors, which solves most of it. Covered markets — Leadenhall, Seven Dials, Old Spitalfields and Covent Garden's halls — let you eat and shop dry. Babylon Park in Camden is three underground floors of rides.
Does it rain a lot in London?
Less than the reputation suggests — around 600mm a year, which is less than Rome. What London has is many days of light drizzle rather than heavy downpours, so an umbrella and a plan matter more than a washout day does.
What is the best indoor activity in London for families?
The Science Museum and Natural History Museum are free, indoors and next door to each other. Young V&A in Bethnal Green is free and built entirely around children. Babylon Park in Camden is underground and full of rides.
Can you shop undercover in London?
Yes. Covent Garden's market halls, Leadenhall Market, Old Spitalfields, Seven Dials Market and Battersea Power Station are all covered, as are the Westfield centres and the Burlington Arcade.
What is the best thing to do in London on a wet Sunday?
Museums, a long lunch and a cinema. The City empties on Sundays, which makes it the best day to walk it — and St Dunstan in the East, Postman's Park and the Sky Garden are all quiet.
