Sloane Square to Battersea Power Station: the south-west walk

The route, stop by stop

1. 1

   Sloane Square and the Saatchi Gallery

   Duke of York's HQ, King's Road SW3 4RY · gallery usually free · daily 10am to 6pm

   Start with a coffee in the square, then the Saatchi Gallery in the old Duke of York's barracks. Most of its shows are free, it is rarely busy, and it is the only contemporary art space in London where you can reliably walk in off the street on a Saturday without a ticket. The Royal Court Theatre on the square is where Look Back in Anger opened in 1956 and changed British theatre.

   15 minute walk west

2. 2

   The King's Road

   SW3 · free

   This was the road Charles II built to get to Kew, private until 1830, and then in turn the centre of the 1960s, of British punk and of everything that got expensive afterwards. Walk it as far as Flood Street, then turn south for the river. If you want number 430, Worlds End, where the shop clock runs backwards and Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren dressed the Sex Pistols, it is another mile west and the same mile back, so it is a detour for fans rather than part of the route.

   10 minute walk south to the river

3. 3

   Chelsea Physic Garden

   66 Royal Hospital Road SW3 4HS · Sunday to Friday 11am to 5pm, closed Saturdays · £13.50 adult

   Founded in 1673 by the Society of Apothecaries so trainee chemists could learn to tell a medicine from a poison. Three and a half acres walled off from the river, with a microclimate warm enough to grow the largest outdoor olive tree in Britain and fruiting grapefruit. Around 5,000 plants, almost all of them useful for something. An hour, and it is the quietest hour in Chelsea.

   8 minute walk

4. 4

   Albert Bridge

   Free · best at dusk

   Opened in 1873, structurally suspect almost immediately, propped up in the middle in 1973 and still carrying traffic. It has 4,000 bulbs on it and it is the only Thames bridge lit like a fairground. The signs at each end still order troops to break step when crossing, because a column of soldiers marching in time could shake it apart. Cross it. It is the best thing on this walk and it is free.

   5 minute walk

5. 5

   Battersea Park

   SW11 4NJ · open daily, free · Pump House Gallery free

   200 acres, opened in 1858 on reclaimed marshland to give south London somewhere to go. The boating lake, the Pump House Gallery, which is free, and the remains of the Festival of Britain Pleasure Gardens are all in here. Walk the riverside edge rather than cutting through the middle.

   6 minute walk

6. 6

   The Peace Pagoda

   Battersea Park riverside · free

   A Buddhist pagoda on the Thames, given to London in 1985 by the Japanese order Nipponzan Myohoji and built by their monks and volunteers. Four gilded scenes from the Buddha's life, facing the river, with a monk who still comes to look after it. Almost nobody outside south London knows it is there.

   12 minute walk east along the river

7. 7

   Battersea Power Station

   Circus Road West SW11 8EZ · shops 10am to 8pm Monday to Saturday, 12pm to 6pm Sunday · free to walk in

   Giles Gilbert Scott, who also designed the red telephone box and Bankside, now Tate Modern. Built in two halves, A station in the 1930s and B in the 1950s, which is why the two turbine halls look nothing alike: A is art deco, B is stainless steel and 1950s optimism. It shut in 1983, stood roofless for forty years, and reopened in October 2022 with over a hundred shops in it. Control Room A is a bar now. You can walk into all of the public parts without paying anything.

   2 minutes

8. 8

   Lift 109

   Inside the Power Station · from £24 adult, £17 child

   A glass lift that takes you up the inside of the north-west chimney and out of the top, 109 metres up, with a 360 degree view. Prices move with demand, so an off-peak weekday slot is meaningfully cheaper than a Saturday. Worth it once, and the history section on the way in is better than it needs to be.

If you are driving, and about the bags

This is one of the few good London walks with a proper car park at the end of it, which makes it the right route if you have been shopping and do not want to carry it.

Car parks

Pump House Lane SW11 8BJ and Circus Road West SW11 8EZ

2.2 metre height limit, EV charging bays at both

Tube

Battersea Power Station, Northern line

The extension opened in 2021 and the station is inside the development

River bus

Battersea Power Station Pier

Uber Boat, straight up to Embankment or down to Putney

Nearest rail

Battersea Park

Ten minutes on foot, trains to Victoria in five

The obvious play with a car: drive to Battersea and park, take the train from Battersea Park to Victoria and the District line one stop to Sloane Square, then walk back to the car. You finish next to the boot rather than three and a half miles from it.

Eating and drinking at the Battersea end

The power station end has more places to eat than the whole rest of the route put together, and most of them are chains with a view. Three that are not:

• The Alchemist, 1 Ponton Road, Nine Elms SW11 7BD. Theatrical cocktails, an outdoor terrace, open from 8am, and opposite the US Embassy. Bottomless brunch from £40 if that is the day you are having.
• Arcade Food Hall in the Turbine Hall, for the version where six people want six different things.
• Circus West Village, in the arches under the railway on the west side, which is the older and slightly less polished half of the development and better for a drink.

What it costs

Three things not to bother with

• Battersea Park Children's Zoo, unless you have children under about eight. It is small and it is not cheap.
• The middle of the King's Road on a Saturday afternoon, which is a high street with more traffic than sense. Go on a weekday or start early.
• Lift 109 at peak on a grey day. It is a view, and a view needs weather.