Things to do in Enfield: 8 days out, 4 of them free

Enfield is the greenest of the London boroughs on this side of town, and most of what there is to do here reflects that: a Jacobean manor with a 273-acre estate, two botanical gardens, a country house that spent the war eavesdropping on German generals, and a transport museum in a Victorian pumping station.

Every price and opening time below was checked against the venue’s own website in August 2026. Four of the eight cost nothing to get into.

The catch nobody mentions: half of these are shut on Mondays

Enfield’s attractions keep unusually restricted days. The transport museum opens one day a week. The Jacobean house opens four. The arts centre closes on Sundays and Mondays. Before you drive anywhere, check the grid.

Forty Hall Estate

Free. Forty Hill, Enfield, EN2 9HA.

A country house built in 1629 for Sir Nicholas Rainton, master haberdasher and Lord Mayor of London, standing in a 273-acre Grade II listed estate with an ornamental lake, medieval fishing ponds, a walled garden and pleasure grounds. It stayed a family home for more than 300 years and became a public museum in 1951, when the council bought it. The house and its museum are open Thursday to Sunday, 11am to 5pm; the gardens and parkland are open daily, 8.30am to 6.30pm. Entry to both is free, with donations invited.

The Cedar Tree Café, recently refurbished, opens Tuesday to Friday 9am to 4pm and weekends 9.30am to 5pm. Forty Hall Farm, an organic farm run by Capel Manor College, is on the same estate, and the buried remains of Elsyng Palace, a Tudor royal residence used by Henry VIII’s children, lie in the grounds.

Getting there: the entrance is on Forty Hill, off Bullsmoor Lane or Carterhatch Lane from the A10. It is about 20 minutes’ walk from Turkey Street, Gordon Hill or Enfield Town stations, or the 191 bus from Enfield Town. The car park opens at 8.30am and is locked at dusk.

Capel Manor Gardens

Adult £10. Bullsmoor Lane, Enfield, EN1 4RQ.

Thirty acres containing more than forty themed gardens, a cacti house, a Fairy Forest and a mini zoo, run as the grounds of London’s environmental college. Its sister site, Forty Hall Farm, is the organic farm on the Forty Hall estate.

Admission is £10 adult (16+), £9 concession (over 60s and students), £6 child aged 3 to 15, free under 3, £30 family for two adults and up to three children. Tickets are sold at Reception. Parking is free.

Opening splits by season. March to October, including bank holidays: daily, 10am to 5.30pm, last admission 4pm. November to February: Monday to Friday only, 10am to 5pm, last admission 3.30pm, with the gardens closed at weekends through the winter. The walled garden closes earlier than the rest, on a rota that changes by day and season, so check before you go if that is what you came for.

Well-behaved dogs on leads are welcome everywhere except the mini zoo.

Myddelton House Gardens

Free entry, £3 to park. Bulls Cross, Enfield, EN2 9HG.

Eight acres of botanical garden built by E A Bowles, the plantsman, and now run by the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority. There is a New River Lawn, an alpine meadow, a rock garden, a rose garden built around an old market cross, a Victorian glasshouse with four climatic zones, a heritage kitchen garden and the small Bowles Museum. The Bowles Tea Room handles refreshments.

Open daily, 10am to 4pm. Entry is free; donations go towards the rock garden restoration. Parking is £3 for cars, £13.50 for minibuses under 16 seats and £28.50 for coaches, free for blue badge holders, with an annual car park pass at £35. Assistance dogs only.

Trent Park House of Secrets

Adult £14. Trent Park, off Cockfosters Road.

The newest thing on this list and the strangest story. Trent Park House was a glittering country house in the 1930s and then, during the Second World War, a secret listening station where captured German generals were housed in comfortable rooms and recorded discussing everything they knew. The museum tells both halves.

Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, closed Mondays. Adult (18+) £14, students £12, junior aged 5 to 17 £12, under 5 free. Carers accompanying a disabled visitor go free, as do Museums Association and ICOM members on production of a card. Advance tickets are sold for an arrival hour rather than a fixed slot, and a limited number of walk-up tickets are available each day from the museum shop.

The Blue Room Café opens Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 5pm. There is a free council car park off the A111 Cockfosters Road, and a free shuttle bus runs between Snakes Lane turning circle and Chaplin Drive, a three-minute walk from Oakwood station. By car it is a short run from M25 junction 24.

Whitewebbs Museum of Transport

Adult £12. Whitewebbs Road, Enfield, EN2 9HW.

An 1898 Victorian water pumping station full of cars, motorbikes and transport history, owned and run by the Enfield and District Veteran Vehicle Trust with no lottery or council money and an entirely volunteer staff. The Guardian put it in its twenty best small museums in London.

Open every Tuesday, 10am to 4pm, last entry 3pm, and on the last Sunday of the month with occasional exceptions. Adults £12, children aged 5 to 12 £6, family ticket £33 for two adults and two children, under 5s free, carers free. Parking is free and the café runs 10.30am to 2pm. Allow two to three hours. No dogs except assistance dogs.

The nearest station is Crews Hill, 0.6 miles away, or the 456 bus from Enfield Town station.

The Museum of Enfield, at Dugdale Arts Centre

Free. 39 London Road, Enfield, EN2 6DS.

Around 20,000 objects covering the places, people and businesses of the borough, including mammoth bones dug up in Tatem Park, a Roman lead coffin, a sixteenth-century mural rescued from Broomfield House, and valves and Belling appliances from Enfield’s industrial century. Highlights sit in a permanent gallery, with two changing exhibitions a year.

The museum is free to visit. Dugdale Arts Centre is open Tuesday to Saturday, 9.30am to 5pm, closed Mondays and Sundays except for special events, and also runs a cinema, a café restaurant and a shop. In July 2026 it was awarded a £30,000 grant towards a new grassroots music space.

Parking is at Genotin Road or Sydney Road car parks, both free from 6.30pm. Note that the Palace Exchange shopping centre car park closes at 9.45pm, which does not suit evening performances.

Museum displays also appear at Edmonton Green, Palmers Green and Ordnance Unity Centre libraries, and at Forty Hall.

Millfield Theatre and Millfield House

Ticketed. Silver Street, Edmonton.

A 360-seat proscenium theatre sitting in parkland next to Millfield House, a Grade II listed Georgian building with seven rooms available for hire. The programme runs to tribute acts, comedy, community and cultural nights, and a full-length Christmas pantomime: Beauty & the Incredible Beast, 4 to 30 December 2026.*

Whitewebbs Park

Free.

Worth a paragraph of its own this year. On 27 July 2026 the High Court quashed the planning permission for Tottenham Hotspur’s proposed football academy on the site of the former Whitewebbs Park Golf Club, after the council withdrew from defending the judicial review. The council leader, Cllr Alessandro Georgiou, said the administration would “move forward with plans that reflect the needs of the local community” for the park.

For now it remains open woodland and grassland on the borough’s northern edge, free to walk, with Whitewebbs Museum of Transport at one end of it. What happens to the golf course land next is genuinely undecided.

Frequently asked questions

What is there to do in Enfield for free?

Forty Hall Estate (house, museum and 273 acres of parkland), Myddelton House Gardens (£3 to park), the Museum of Enfield at Dugdale Arts Centre, and Whitewebbs Park. All four charge nothing for admission.

How much does Capel Manor Gardens cost?

£10 for an adult, £9 concession, £6 for a child aged 3 to 15, free under 3, and £30 for a family of two adults and up to three children. Parking is free.

Is Trent Park House museum open?

Yes. Trent Park House of Secrets opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, closed Mondays. Adult admission is £14, students and juniors aged 5 to 17 £12, under 5s free.

What can you do in Enfield on a Monday?

Not much indoors. Myddelton House Gardens, Capel Manor Gardens (March to October) and the grounds at Forty Hall are open. Trent Park House, the Museum of Enfield, Whitewebbs Museum and the Forty Hall house are all closed on Mondays.

Is there a museum in Enfield?

Three. The Museum of Enfield at Dugdale Arts Centre (free, Tuesday to Saturday), Whitewebbs Museum of Transport (£12, Tuesdays and the last Sunday of the month) and Trent Park House of Secrets (£14, Tuesday to Sunday).

Related

• Enfield trains and tube to London: Oakwood for Trent Park, Crews Hill for Whitewebbs, Turkey Street or Gordon Hill for Forty Hall.
• Roads, roadworks and travel in Enfield: where to park, and what is dug up on the way.
• Enfield planning news: the Whitewebbs judgment and what the Local Plan says about the borough’s green belt.

Sources

Each venue’s own website, checked August 2026: Forty Hall Estate, Capel Manor Gardens, Myddelton House Gardens, Trent Park House of Secrets, Whitewebbs Museum of Transport, Dugdale Arts Centre and its museum page, and Millfield Theatre. The Whitewebbs Park judgment is reported in Enfield Council’s statement of 27 July 2026.

Opening times and prices change, particularly between summer and winter. Confirm with the venue before you travel.