Hyde Park is separated from Kensington Gardens by the gently curving Serpentine lake, created when the River Westbourne was dammed in the 1730s. At Christmas, it's the site of an only-the-brave swimming race, and in summer people like to rent pedalos (adult/child per hour £10.50/7.50). A solar ferry called the SolarShuttle traverses the Serpentine at river-snail's pace from the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain to the boat house near the Dell Café (daily from June to August, weekends only for the rest of the year).
Serpentine Lake
Kensington & Hyde Park
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
19 MILES
The world’s largest and oldest continuously occupied fortress, Windsor Castle is a majestic vision of battlements and towers. Used for state occasions, it…
1.7 MILES
A splendid mixture of architectural styles, Westminster Abbey is considered the finest example of Early English Gothic. It's not merely a beautiful place…
2.87 MILES
One of London's most amazing attractions, Tate Modern is an outstanding modern- and contemporary-art gallery housed in the creatively revamped Bankside…
0.78 MILES
With its thunderous, animatronic dinosaur, riveting displays about planet earth, outstanding Darwin Centre and architecture straight from a Gothic fairy…
2.97 MILES
Sir Christopher Wren’s 300-year-old architectural masterpiece is a London icon. Towering over diminutive Ludgate Hill in a superb position that's been a…
3.88 MILES
Few parts of the UK are as steeped in history or as impregnated with legend and superstition as the titanic stonework of the Tower of London. Not only is…
2.97 MILES
Seeing a play at Shakespeare's Globe – ideally standing under the open-air "wooden O" – is experiencing the playwright's work at its best and most…
1.94 MILES
With almost six million visitors trooping through its doors annually, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, one of the oldest and finest museums in the world,…
Nearby Kensington & Hyde Park attractions
0.25 MILES
One of London’s best parks, Hyde Park spreads itself over 142 hectares of neat gardens, wild expanses of overgrown grass and glorious trees. As well as…
0.27 MILES
This exhibition space is part of the Serpentine Galleries, located within the Magazine, a former Palladian villa–style gunpowder depot dating to 1805,…
3. Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain
0.3 MILES
Dedicated to the late Princess of Wales, this memorial fountain was envisaged by the designer Kathryn Gustafson as a ‘moat without a castle’, draped ‘like…
0.3 MILES
This simple marker of stones in a grove of birch trees, a short distance east of the Serpentine in Hyde Park, is a quiet commemoration of those who died…
0.39 MILES
Fashioned in stone from northern Italy, this 37-tonne travertine statue by Henry Moore provides phenomenal views of Kensington Palace.
0.39 MILES
This gallery is one of London’s most important contemporary-art galleries. Damien Hirst, Andreas Gursky, Louise Bourgeois, Gabriel Orozco, Tomoko…
0.45 MILES
Beautifully landscaped gardens in Hyde Park, with flowers year-round. It's an ideal place in which to sit and contemplate for a while.
0.51 MILES
This is sculptor George Frampton’s celebrated statue; close to the Long Water. Kensington Gardens were an inspiration for JM Barrie, author of Peter Pan,…