Richmond Park — Free Entry, the Deer & Best Walks (No Ticket)

The lowdown

Yes, Richmond Park is completely free to enter, with no tickets and no barriers to pay your way past. The pedestrian gates stay open 24 hours a day, the only exception being a few nights each year during the deer culls in February and November, when they lock between 8pm and 7:30am. The vehicle gates open at 7am in summer and 7:30am in winter and close at dusk, a time that shifts through the year, and parking inside the park is free.

Richmond is the biggest of London's Royal Parks and the wildest by a mile, two and a half thousand acres of rough grassland, ancient oaks and bracken that feels like proper countryside. The shock is that it is still London, half an hour from Waterloo, and entirely free.

The deer are the reason everyone comes. Around six hundred red and fallow deer have roamed here freely since 1637, and you will come across whole herds lying in the grass or crossing the road in front of you. They are wild animals, so you keep your distance, especially in the autumn rut and the spring birthing season.

Climb to King Henry's Mound and there is a strange treat, a telescope framing a protected view of St Paul's Cathedral ten miles away, a sightline that has been kept clear by law for centuries. A free park, free deer and a free secret view, all in one.