15 Things to Do in Paddington, London (Near the Station)

Paddington in west London is a canalside district in the W2 postcode, built around Brunel’s railway station, and the things to do there are Paddington Bear’s statue, the canals of Little Venice, two moving bridges, a free museum where penicillin was discovered, and a floating puppet theatre. Most of them are within 15 minutes’ walk of the station concourse.

This guide covers Paddington in London, England. If you are looking for Paddington in Sydney, the Australian suburb with Oxford Street’s boutiques and the Saturday markets, this is not that one; the two share a name and nothing else.

Most people arrive in Paddington, cross the concourse and leave. That is a mistake worth correcting, because the neighbourhood behind the station has some of the strangest small attractions in London and almost no queue for any of them.

Where is Paddington in London?

Paddington sits in the City of Westminster in west London, between Notting Hill and Marylebone, immediately north of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. The Grand Union Canal runs through it and widens into Paddington Basin behind the station and into the pool at Little Venice to the north west.

The area grew up around the station and the canal, which is why its architecture is a mix of white stucco Victorian terraces and glass office blocks put up in the past twenty years. Regent’s Park is not next door, whatever some guides say, but it is a 45-minute canal boat ride away from Little Venice, which is a nicer way to reach it than the Tube.

Paddington station itself connects to Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Oxford and the whole of the west of England, and since 2022 the Elizabeth line has run through it to the City, Canary Wharf and Heathrow. That combination is why so many visitors stay here and see nothing of it.

The 15 things to do in Paddington, London

The list below runs roughly north west to south east, from Little Venice down the canal to the station and Hyde Park, so it works as a walking order.

1. Paddington Bear’s statue on Platform 1, and the painted bench beside it.
2. The Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum, free, in the room where penicillin was found.
3. Little Venice, the canal pool where the Grand Union and Regent’s Canal meet.
4. The Puppet Theatre Barge, the only floating puppet theatre in the UK.
5. The Rolling Bridge, Thomas Heatherwick’s curling steel footbridge.
6. The Fan Bridge, which opens like a hand of cards at midday.
7. Merchant Square and its canalside food stalls.
8. The Fountain Maze, 320 water jets you try to walk through without getting wet.
9. The Floating Pocket Park, London’s first park built on the water.
10. A canal boat, self-drive or scheduled, from Paddington Basin to Camden.
11. The Portrait Bench sculptures of Alan Turing, Michael Bond and Mary Seacole.
12. Paddington station itself, one of Brunel’s great train sheds.
13. Paddington Square, the Renzo Piano building and the piazza under it.
14. Kensington Gardens, with Kensington Palace and the Albert Memorial.
15. Hyde Park, the Serpentine and Speakers’ Corner.

1. Find Paddington Bear on Platform 1

Paddington Bear’s bronze statue stands on Platform 1 of Paddington station, under the big clock, and it is free to visit and photograph. Marcus Cornish sculpted it and Michael Bond, who wrote the books, unveiled it on 24 February 2000.

The bear sits on his battered suitcase, exactly as he does in the scene where the Brown family find him. Next to it is a painted Paddington bench, which is the better photograph because nobody queues for it.

Bond named the character after the station because he lived nearby and bought the original toy bear as a Christmas present for his wife in 1956. Expect a short queue at the statue on weekends and school holidays; both spots are inside the station, so you can do them with 10 minutes before a train.

2. Visit the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum

The Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum is inside St Mary’s Hospital on Praed Street, admission is free, and it preserves the room where Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. It is a two-minute walk from the station and the single most interesting thing in Paddington.

The laboratory has been restored to its 1928 condition, and the displays and film around it explain how a contaminated culture plate turned into the first antibiotic and a Nobel Prize. The whole visit takes about 45 minutes.

Practical details: the museum opens Monday to Thursday, 10am to 1pm, for walk-up visitors, and by appointment on other weekdays. It closes on public holidays and between Christmas and New Year. There is no wheelchair access, because the museum sits in its original Grade II listed rooms up a staircase; a 360-degree virtual tour is available instead.

St Mary’s is also the hospital whose Lindo Wing delivered Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, which is what most people know it for now.

3. Walk through Little Venice

Little Venice is the triangular pool where the Grand Union Canal meets the Regent’s Canal, about 10 minutes north west of Paddington station, and walking it costs nothing. Narrowboats are moored along both banks, willows lean over the water, and the traffic noise stops the moment you drop down onto the towpath.

The name is usually credited to the poet Robert Browning, who lived nearby, and the small island in the pool is called Browning’s Island. Rembrandt Gardens on the north side is the place to sit.

From here you can walk the towpath east to Camden in about an hour, or take a scheduled canal boat, which runs the same route past London Zoo and Regent’s Park. The boat is the better option in one direction and the walk in the other.

4. See a show at the Puppet Theatre Barge

The Puppet Theatre Barge is the only floating puppet theatre in the UK, moored in Little Venice, and it has been running marionette shows for around forty years. The auditorium seats about fifty people, which makes every seat a good one.

The programme mixes children’s shows, usually for ages three to ten, with occasional evening performances for adults. It is a genuinely odd and rather wonderful thing to do on a wet afternoon.

Book before you go, and check where the barge is. It does not stay in Little Venice all year: it moves to Richmond upon Thames for the late summer, typically from mid-August to early October, and returns to Little Venice in October for the winter season. Turning up in September expecting to find it is the mistake to avoid.

5. Watch the Rolling Bridge curl up

The Rolling Bridge is a steel footbridge over an inlet of Paddington Basin that curls into an octagon to let boats past, and watching it is free. Thomas Heatherwick designed it and it was completed in 2004.

Instead of lifting in one piece, the bridge is made of eight hinged sections that contract until the far end meets the near end and the whole walkway becomes a circle sitting on the bank. It takes a couple of minutes and it is worth planning around.

It usually operates on Wednesdays and Fridays at midday. Schedules change and the mechanism is occasionally out of action, so check the Paddington Basin listings on the day rather than making a special trip.

6. Catch the Fan Bridge opening

The Fan Bridge is the second moving footbridge in Paddington Basin, and it opens like a hand of cards at midday on the same days as the Rolling Bridge. Knight Architects designed it: 20 m long and 3 m wide, in five separate beams that rise at different angles and leave just enough clearance for a narrowboat.

The two bridges are a few minutes’ walk apart, both over the same stretch of water behind the station, so you can see one and then the other in the same lunch hour. Both are free, and both are more impressive in person than a description makes them sound.

7. Spend an hour at Merchant Square

Merchant Square is the canalside development on Paddington Basin, and it is where the food, the events and the water-based activities are concentrated. It is a five-minute walk from the station, and there is nothing to pay to be there.

Street food traders set up on the square during the week and the space is used for live music, screenings and seasonal events. GAIL’s Bakery and a run of cafés and restaurants sit around the edge, and the canal terrace is the nicest place to sit outdoors in Paddington in summer.

The square is also the departure point for GoBoat, which rents small self-drive electric boats that need no licence and no experience, and for stand-up paddleboard hire. Both let you get onto a stretch of canal that most Londoners never see.

8. Try to beat the Fountain Maze

The Fountain Maze at Merchant Square is a set of 320 water jets arranged in three concentric rings, and the game is to reach the centre and get back out without getting wet. It is free, it is outdoors, and it is aimed at children and works just as well on adults.

The jets fire in a moving pattern, so the route through changes constantly. It runs in blocks through the day, typically early morning, late morning and through the afternoon into the evening, and it is switched off in high winds.

9. Sit in the Floating Pocket Park

The Floating Pocket Park is a 730 m² garden built on a pontoon in Paddington Basin, the first floating park in London, and it costs nothing to walk onto. Tony Woods, a Chelsea Flower Show gold medallist, designed the planting.

It has its own canal mooring, benches and enough greenery to forget where you are. Take a coffee from Merchant Square and sit on it for twenty minutes: it is the quietest place within five minutes of Paddington station.

10. Get out on the canal

Getting onto the water shows you a Paddington the streets do not, and there are three ways to do it: a self-drive electric boat, a scheduled canal boat, or a paddleboard. All three leave from Paddington Basin or Little Venice.

A self-drive GoBoat takes up to eight people, needs no licence and comes with a table in the middle, so people bring a picnic. A scheduled narrowboat from Little Venice runs to Camden Lock through Regent’s Park and past London Zoo, which is the classic trip. Paddleboards are hired by the hour from Merchant Square.

Book ahead for weekends in summer, when the boats go early. Weekday mornings you can usually walk up.

11. Find the Portrait Bench sculptures

Three Corten steel silhouettes of Paddington’s local heroes stand beside the path between St Mary’s Terrace and the station, near St Mary’s church on Paddington Green, and they are free to find. Sustrans, the cycling and walking charity, installed them in 2013 as part of its Portrait Bench series, and local residents voted for the three subjects.

The three figures are listed below.

1. Alan Turing, the mathematician and codebreaker, born at 2 Warrington Crescent in nearby Maida Vale.
2. Michael Bond, who created Paddington Bear and named him after the station.
3. Mary Seacole, the British-Jamaican nurse who cared for soldiers in the Crimean War.

The steel is the same material as the Angel of the North and rusts to a deep orange over time, so they look older than they are.

12. Look properly at Paddington station

Paddington station is one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s great train sheds, opened in 1854, and walking in to look at the roof costs nothing. Three wrought-iron and glass spans arch over the platforms, with a fourth added in 1916.

The original 1838 terminus stood on a different site just to the west, so the building you walk through is the second Paddington rather than the first. Look up at the ironwork, at the Great Western Railway heraldry, and at the memorial to the railway staff killed in the First World War on Platform 1.

The Lawn, the open area at the concourse end, has the shops and the Paddington Bear shop. The Elizabeth line platforms are underneath, reached from the western end.

13. Walk through Paddington Square

Paddington Square is the piazza and glass building beside the station, finished in 2024, and the public square is open to anyone. Renzo Piano Building Workshop designed the cube-shaped building on the site of the old Royal Mail sorting office.

Underneath it sits a new Bakerloo line ticket hall with twice as many gates as the old one and step-free access, which is the practical reason the development matters. Above it is a rooftop restaurant, and around it 1.35 acres of open square with public art.

Older Paddington guides still describe the square as a building site. It is finished, and it has changed the walk between the station and Praed Street.

14. Stroll through Kensington Gardens

Kensington Gardens is the royal park on Paddington’s southern edge, free to enter, and it holds Kensington Palace, the Albert Memorial and the Diana Memorial Playground. It was carved out of Hyde Park in the 18th century and has felt like a separate park ever since.

The Serpentine Galleries sit inside it and are free, including the summer pavilion commissioned from a different architect each year. Kensington Palace charges admission; the gardens around it do not.

From the top of the park, Lancaster Gate Tube is one stop from Paddington, or a 15-minute walk.

15. Cross into Hyde Park

Hyde Park is the larger royal park immediately south of Paddington, free, and it holds the Serpentine lake, Speakers’ Corner and enough open ground to lose a weekend in. You can swim in the Serpentine at the Lido in summer, hire a pedalo, or hire a deckchair and do nothing.

Speakers’ Corner, at the north east tip near Marble Arch, still runs on Sunday mornings and is worth an hour if you have never seen it. Cafés and kiosks inside the park handle food.

Where to eat and drink in Paddington

The pub to head for in Paddington is the Bridge House in Little Venice, at 13 Westbourne Terrace Road on the corner of Delamere Terrace, which sits right on the canal. It does seasonal pub food, real ales and a Sunday roast people travel for, and it opens from 11am most days.

What makes it worth a trip rather than just a pint is what is upstairs: the Canal Café Theatre, a 60-seat fringe venue that has been staging comedy and new writing above the pub for decades. Its long-running topical revue is a London institution.

For everything else, Merchant Square and Sheldon Square are where the eating happens. Sheldon Square, a few minutes further along the canal at Paddington Central, is a grassy amphitheatre ringed with restaurants, with free outdoor table tennis and big-screen showings in summer.

Getting to and around Paddington

Paddington station is served by the Elizabeth line, the Bakerloo, Circle, District and Hammersmith & City Tube lines, the Heathrow Express and Great Western Railway, which makes it one of the best-connected points in London. Everything in this guide is walkable from it.

From Heathrow: the Heathrow Express reaches Terminals 2 and 3 in 15 minutes and is the fastest option and the most expensive. The Elizabeth line covers the same route in about half an hour for a fraction of the fare, and it runs on to the City and Canary Wharf, so it is the better choice unless you are late.

Onward by train: Great Western Railway runs west from Paddington to Oxford, Bristol, Bath, Exeter and Cardiff, which is why the station is full of people with suitcases. Advance fares cost far less than walk-up ones, and Omio compares train and coach fares on those routes in one search.

Flying in: most long-haul arrivals come through Heathrow, which is the Paddington connection, but Gatwick, Stansted and Luton all serve London and can be cheaper. Trip.com shows the routes side by side, which is worth checking before you commit to an airport.

Where to stay in Paddington

Paddington is one of the better-value central areas to stay in London, because the Victorian terraces around Norfolk Square, Sussex Gardens and Westbourne Terrace hold dozens of small hotels within five minutes of the station. You are paying for a location that is one Tube stop from Oxford Street and a walk from Hyde Park.

The trade-offs are worth knowing. Rooms in converted townhouses are often small and up narrow stairs with no lift, and the streets closest to Praed Street can be noisy at night. Little Venice and Bayswater, both a short walk away, are quieter.

If you want a flat rather than a hotel room, which usually works out better in London for stays over three nights, comparing what is available on Vrbo is the quicker route in this part of town.

Don’t forget travel insurance

Travel insurance covers what a city break cannot plan around: a cancelled leg, an illness abroad, or a stolen phone. I make sure I am covered on every trip I take.

If you have not sorted a policy yet, check out SafetyWing. Their plans are flexible enough to start after you have already left home, they were the first travel insurer to cover COVID, and when I claimed for COVID expenses they paid without an argument.

Paddington questions, answered

Is Paddington worth visiting?

Paddington is worth half a day, and it is worth basing yourself in for longer. The canal, the two moving bridges, the Fleming museum and Little Venice give you a morning that costs almost nothing, and Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens are on the doorstep.

What it is not is a headline sightseeing district. If you have two days in London, spend them elsewhere and give Paddington a morning.

How long do you need in Paddington?

Half a day covers the station, the Fleming museum, both bridges and Merchant Square at an easy pace. A full day gets you Little Venice, a canal boat and Kensington Gardens on top.

Is Paddington a good area to stay in London?

Paddington is a good base if you value transport and value for money over atmosphere. The Elizabeth line puts you 15 minutes from the West End and the City, the Heathrow connection beats anywhere else in London, and room rates undercut Marylebone and Notting Hill.

Is Paddington safe?

Paddington is as safe as most of central London, which means ordinary city awareness rather than special caution. The area around Praed Street and the station is busy late and attracts the usual station-district petty crime, so keep your phone out of sight and use licensed taxis or a booked car at night.

Is this Paddington in London or Paddington in Sydney?

This guide is about Paddington in London, in the W2 postcode of the City of Westminster, around Paddington station. Paddington in Sydney is a separate suburb in New South Wales, known for its terrace houses, the Oxford Street boutiques and the Saturday Paddington Markets, and none of the places on this page are there.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 4 tips below come from checking Paddington’s opening hours, bridge schedules and mooring arrangements against the venues themselves, and every one of them decides whether a visit works on the day you turn up.

1. Check where the Puppet Theatre Barge is moored before you walk to Little Venice. It splits the year, sitting at Richmond upon Thames from around mid-August to early October and returning to Little Venice for the winter season. September is the month people arrive to find an empty mooring.
2. Give the Fleming Museum a Monday to Thursday morning. Walk-up visits run 10am to 1pm on those four days only, other weekdays are by appointment, and it closes on public holidays and between Christmas and New Year. Admission is free. The laboratory sits in Grade II listed rooms up a staircase with no wheelchair access, and the 360-degree virtual tour is the alternative.
3. Time the two moving bridges for midday on a Wednesday or a Friday, then check on the day. The Rolling Bridge and the Fan Bridge both operate then, and both go out of service without much warning, so read the Paddington Basin listings the morning you plan to be there rather than building an afternoon around a mechanism.
4. Take the Elizabeth line from Heathrow unless you are running late. The Heathrow Express reaches Terminals 2 and 3 in 15 minutes and charges for it. The Elizabeth line covers the same run into Paddington in about half an hour for a fraction of the fare, and it carries on to the City and Canary Wharf, which the Express does not.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the team covers London for independent travellers, from the canal walks and free museums of Paddington to the hotels around the station worth booking. We check opening hours, bridge schedules and venue addresses against the venues’ own sources, and update this page when they change.