Where to picnic in London when Hyde Park's heaving

By noon on any warm Saturday, Hyde Park and Regent's Park are full. The better picnic spots are smaller, often walled, and some are nearer your front door than the big parks. If you're planning ahead, July is the safest month to aim for, warm and with rain on fewer than nine days.

Small gardens in the middle of town

Mount Street Gardens in Mayfair is an old burial ground laid out as a garden in 1889, sheltered enough for Canary Island date palms and dawn redwoods to grow, and many of its benches were given by American families who lived nearby. There isn't much lawn, so treat it as a bench picnic with a sandwich, a flask and the Gothic flank of Farm Street Church through the trees. Go in from South Audley Street or Mount Street.

The Phoenix Garden, tucked behind the Phoenix Theatre off Stacey Street and St Giles Passage, has been a volunteer-run community garden since 1984. It's planted for wildlife, has a pond and opens dawn to dusk every day, and for lunch between Covent Garden and Soho nothing nearby comes close. A short walk north-east, St George's Gardens in Bloomsbury is another pair of old burial grounds turned public garden, with benches under big old trees and far fewer people than Russell Square.

In the City, St Dunstan-in-the-East is the shell of a church damaged in the Blitz, with a Wren tower, ivy up the walls and a fountain in the middle; the City of London turned it into a garden in 1970. It's five minutes from Monument or Tower Hill, belongs to office workers with sandwiches on weekdays and draws photographers at weekends, and weekday afternoons after 2pm are the calmest time to go.

In Regent's Park, walk the Inner Circle and look for a small gate on the north side. Through it is St John's Lodge Garden, a formal garden of hedged rooms, statues and benches that most people in the park never find, and better suited to a picnic for two than a group.

Heath, canal and river

On the west side of Hampstead Heath, the Hill Garden and Pergola is a raised Edwardian walkway running for a few hundred metres above a walled garden, with wisteria in late spring and views over the heath. Picnic on the lawns below rather than on the pergola itself. Take the Northern line to Hampstead, and it's a 15-minute walk across the heath.

Camley Street Natural Park is a London Wildlife Trust reserve of woodland, grassland and wetland on the Regent's Canal between King's Cross and St Pancras. It's open 10am to 5pm from April to September, and the Camley Street Cafe sells coffee, cake and a glass of fizz if you forgot to pack one. Furnivall Gardens in Hammersmith is open grass on the Thames, with benches facing the river and pubs either side; it's calm most of the year but packed on Boat Race day, when it becomes the Hammersmith fan zone. Further east, Thames Barrier Park is a modern formal park with a sunken garden of clipped hedges and the barrier itself as a backdrop, a few minutes' walk from Pontoon Dock on the DLR.

Room to run, and where to buy the food

Children who need space are better off in south London. Brockwell Park, between Brixton and Herne Hill, has hills, a walled garden and long views back to the City, while Crystal Palace Park has the Victorian dinosaur sculptures, restored in summer 2026 after years of conservation work, and is split into enough separate parts that it never feels full.

Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly sells ready-packed picnic hampers for two and four, ten minutes on foot from Green Park and St James's Park. In Marylebone, La Fromagerie on Moxon Street is the better stop for cheese, bread and charcuterie, with Paddington Street Gardens around the corner to eat it in. Wherever you end up, take your rubbish home, because small gardens like the Phoenix Garden are run by volunteers and the bins fill fast on sunny weekends.

Food hygiene ratings for the places in this guide

Official fact Food Standards Agency Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, checked 23 September 2026. 5 is the top rating.

Name	Registered address	Rating	Inspected
Camley Street Cafe	12 Camley Street, N1C 4PW	5	Nov 2022
La Fromagerie	4 Moxon Street, W1U 4EW	5	Jul 2025

Ratings cover hygiene only, not food quality. Matched by name and address; a venue not shown was not found or could not be matched with confidence.

London weather by month

July is the warmest month, averaging 23°C by day. July has the fewest wet days (9) and October the most rain (80 mm). For sightseeing on foot, June scores best on our combined warmth-and-dryness measure.

Month	Avg high	Avg low	Rain	Wet days	Chance a 7-day stay sees a washout	Record high / low
January	8°C	2°C	74 mm	13	53%	16°C / -12°C
February	8°C	2°C	51 mm	10	43%	18°C / -8°C
March	11°C	4°C	45 mm	9	44%	23°C / -7°C
April	14°C	5°C	54 mm	10	44%	26°C / -3°C
May	17°C	8°C	54 mm	9	39%	30°C / -1°C
June	20°C	11°C	58 mm	9	35%	34°C / 2°C
July	23°C	13°C	52 mm	9	34%	34°C / 4°C
August	22°C	13°C	68 mm	9	37%	37°C / 4°C
September	19°C	11°C	62 mm	9	39%	29°C / 2°C
October	15°C	8°C	80 mm	11	47%	27°C / -2°C
November	11°C	5°C	76 mm	12	52%	18°C / -6°C
December	8°C	2°C	69 mm	12	50%	16°C / -8°C

Calculated NOAA GHCN-Daily observations at the Hampstead weather station, north London (records 1960–2015; averages from about 25 years per month). A wet day has 1 mm of rain or more.