The Southbank Centre is the group of concrete arts buildings on the Thames between the London Eye and Waterloo Bridge. Its foyers and riverside terraces are open to the public without a ticket, which makes it one of the most useful free indoor spaces in central London when the weather turns.
The complex grew out of the Festival of Britain in 1951, which left the Royal Festival Hall on a strip of bombed industrial riverside. The Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room and the Hayward Gallery were added in the 1960s in a much harder style, on raised walkways and platforms that still divide opinion.
Our guide to the South Bank covers the riverside walk as a whole, from Westminster Bridge to Bankside. This page is about the arts centre itself: how to use the free parts, and what is immediately next door that most visitors walk straight past.
We could not check the Southbank Centre's own website for this article. Its site refused our requests, so we have deliberately left out opening hours, ticket prices, gallery times and the days the food market runs, rather than print figures we have not confirmed. Everything time-sensitive below is sourced from somewhere we could read. Check southbankcentre.co.uk directly before you plan around anything.
What the complex actually contains
Four things, in a row, from west to east:
- The Royal Festival Hall, the 1951 building, with the largest of the concert halls and the biggest public foyers.
- The Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room, two smaller halls sharing one 1960s building, used for chamber music, contemporary music, spoken word and dance.
- The Hayward Gallery, a contemporary art gallery with ticketed exhibitions, recognisable by the pyramid rooflights on top.
- The National Poetry Library, on an upper floor of the Royal Festival Hall, which is free to use.
Everything else on this stretch belongs to somebody else. BFI Southbank, under and beside Waterloo Bridge, is run by the British Film Institute. The National Theatre, on the far side of the bridge, is a separate organisation again. Visitors conflate all three, and it matters when you are looking for your venue in the dark.
Using the foyers, which is free and expected
The ground floor of the Royal Festival Hall is the part to know. It is a large, warm, open space with seating, a café, a bar and toilets, and nobody will ask why you are there. People work at the tables, meet before performances and shelter from the rain, and on many days there is a piano or a free performance somewhere in the building.
This is the single most useful fact about the Southbank Centre for a visitor on a budget: you can spend an hour here in the dry, with a toilet and a seat, for nothing. On this stretch of riverside that is worth a great deal, and our guides to finding a toilet in London and free things to do explain why.
The terraces outside are the other half of it. The building's roof levels and river frontage are public, with steps down to the riverside walk and views across to Charing Cross and the Houses of Parliament. See roof gardens and free terraces for what else is open in the same way.
The undercroft and the book market
Beneath the Queen Elizabeth Hall is a covered concrete space that skateboarders and BMX riders took over in the 1970s and have defended ever since. It is not a facility the Southbank Centre built; it is a piece of the building's underside that was adopted, fought over and eventually kept. You can stand and watch from the walkway above for as long as you like, and it is one of the better free things to do with a teenager in central London.
Under Waterloo Bridge itself, a row of trestle tables sells second-hand books, old maps and prints on most days. Prices are ordinary rather than cheap, the stock turns over slowly, and it is a pleasant ten minutes rather than a serious hunting ground. Our guide to London's bookshops has the places to go if you want to buy rather than browse.
The free things next door that nobody uses
Two of the best free attractions on this part of the river belong to the BFI rather than the Southbank Centre, and almost no visitors know they exist.
The BFI Mediatheque is a room of viewing booths inside BFI Southbank on Belvedere Road, where you can watch more than 180,000 titles from the BFI National Archive. It is free, nobody needs to book, headphones are provided and you simply choose a booth and touch the screen. It opens Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 9pm and closes on Mondays except bank holidays. Most of the material cannot be watched at home because of rights restrictions, so this is the only way to see it.
The BFI Reuben Library, in the same building, is free and open to anyone, not only researchers: books, journals and digitised material about film and television. It closed on 7, 10 and 17 October 2026 for London Film Festival events, which is the kind of thing to check before a special trip.
Charge your phone before you go to the Mediatheque. The BFI states plainly that there are no longer power outlets in the viewing booths. If you are settling in for two hours of archive television on a wet afternoon, arrive with a full battery or a power bank.
While you are there: BFI Southbank has four screens open seven days a week, and anyone aged 16 to 25 can get cinema tickets for £4, any film, any time. That is the cheapest cinema in central London by a wide margin. Our guide to the BFI London Film Festival covers the October programme.
Concerts, and how the halls differ
The Royal Festival Hall is a large hall with a wide stage, used for symphony orchestras and for big one-off events. The Queen Elizabeth Hall is considerably smaller and suits chamber and contemporary programmes, and the Purcell Room is smaller again, closer to a recital room.
Practical consequence: the three have very different atmospheres, and a ticket that says "Southbank Centre" tells you almost nothing until you look at which hall it is in. Check the venue name on the ticket, and give yourself ten minutes to find it, because the buildings connect at several levels and the entrance you want may not be at river level.
For how the Southbank Centre fits into the wider classical scene, see classical music in London and free live music. The obvious comparison for the building itself is the Barbican Centre, which does the same thing in the City with the same concrete and the same free foyers, and the Royal Albert Hall is the opposite proposition: a Victorian building with no free public space at all.
Turning up without a plan
The Southbank Centre rewards a visit with no fixed intention better than almost anywhere else in London, which is unusual advice from a guidebook. Walk in through the Royal Festival Hall, look at what is chalked or screened up in the foyer, and decide then.
On a typical day that might mean a free performance in the foyer, an exhibition you had not heard of, a talk, the poetry library upstairs, or nothing at all except a seat by the window with the river in front of you. Because the building is free and open from early until late, none of that costs you anything if it turns out to be dull.
Our one caution is that the programme genuinely does change week by week, and the Southbank Centre publishes it on its own website. Look there the night before rather than trusting any third-party listing, including the dates and times in older guidebooks, which go out of date faster here than at a museum with a permanent collection.
Getting there, and which station to use
Waterloo is the obvious station and the walk is about five minutes, out of the main concourse and down the steps beside the IMAX roundabout. Embankment, across the Golden Jubilee footbridges on the north bank, is often quicker if you are coming from the Bakerloo, Circle or District lines, and the bridge crossing is one of the better short walks in London.
Waterloo East and Charing Cross are both within ten minutes, and Southwark and Blackfriars serve the eastern end of the riverside. Our guide to London's main railway stations explains how Waterloo works, which matters if you are arriving with luggage.
After a concert, walking east to Blackfriars or Southwark is frequently faster than joining everybody else at Waterloo. It takes ten to fifteen minutes and the riverside path is well lit.
Half a day either side
The Southbank Centre is rarely a destination on its own. West are the London Eye and County Hall; east, past the National Theatre and the bridge, the walk continues to Tate Modern and Bankside, which is about twenty minutes on foot.
There is a food market behind the Royal Festival Hall on certain days, and street food stalls appear along the walk in summer; our guide to London's food markets covers the bigger ones. For an evening, the combination of a free foyer, a cheap BFI ticket and a walk along the river works better than most paid attractions, and a rainy day in London has more of the same.
If you are collecting significant post-war buildings, add the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park and the theatres covered in our West End theatre guide for the contrast.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Southbank Centre free to enter?
The foyers, walkways and riverside terraces are free and open to the public, and you can sit, use the toilets and buy a coffee without a ticket. Concerts and Hayward Gallery exhibitions are ticketed. Check the Southbank Centre's own website for current opening hours and prices.
What buildings make up the Southbank Centre?
The Royal Festival Hall, which dates from the Festival of Britain in 1951; the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room, two smaller 1960s halls in one building; and the Hayward Gallery. The National Poetry Library is inside the Royal Festival Hall. BFI Southbank and the National Theatre are separate organisations next door.
Can you watch skateboarding at the Southbank Centre?
Yes. The undercroft beneath the Queen Elizabeth Hall has been used by skateboarders and BMX riders since the 1970s and is free to watch from the walkway above. It is open to the air on the river side and covered overhead, so it is used in the rain as well.
What is free at BFI Southbank?
The BFI Mediatheque, where you can watch over 180,000 archive film and television titles in a viewing booth, is free and open Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 9pm, closed on Mondays except bank holidays. The BFI Reuben Library is also free and open to anyone. Cinema tickets cost £4 for anyone aged 16 to 25.
Which station is closest to the Southbank Centre?
Waterloo, about five minutes on foot. Embankment on the north bank is often quicker if you are on the Bakerloo, Circle or District lines, using the Golden Jubilee footbridges. Waterloo East, Charing Cross, Southwark and Blackfriars are all within about fifteen minutes.
Sources
- BFI - BFI Southbank (checked September 2026)
- BFI - BFI Mediatheque (checked September 2026)
- BFI - BFI Reuben Library (checked September 2026)
- Southbank Centre - official website (for current hours, prices and programme)