Dulwich Park and Peckham Rye

Published 28 September 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

Both are free, both open at 7.30am, and the gate you choose decides whether they are twenty minutes apart or thirty-five. Dulwich Park is the polite one, with a boating lake, a recumbent cycle-hire stand and rhododendrons; Peckham Rye is a Victorian park stitched onto an ancient common, and the common half never closes at all.

Together they make an easy south London day that costs nothing but the train fare. Dulwich Park is 29 hectares of lawns and mature trees laid out in 1890 on farmland called the five fields, some of whose boundary oaks are still standing. Peckham Rye Park and Common sit at the bottom of Rye Lane and were being farmed before the Norman Conquest, which is why the common has a different legal character from the park beside it.

Our guides to Herne Hill and Dulwich and to Peckham cover the neighbourhoods either side. This page is about the two green spaces themselves: which gates, what is open when, what you can hire and what it costs.

Boats on the Dulwich lake, and the price that is missing

The boating lake is the reason most families come. There are traditional rowing boats and pedalos in children's and family sizes, hired in half-hour sessions. Southwark Council publishes two prices and not a third: £4 for a child aged 15 or under, and £17 for a family of two adults and two children, both for 30 minutes. No adult-only price appears on the council's page, so if you are two adults without children, ask at the boathouse before you queue.

Hire hours change from year to year, and the council tells you to check them rather than publishing them, which is honest but unhelpful on a Sunday morning. The boathouse has its own accessibility notes, also on the council's page. Our guide to boat hire and pedalos in London explains why these desks close without warning and which lakes are more reliable.

The cycle hire is the unusual part

Dulwich Park has a recumbent cycle-hire outlet, open every day except Christmas from 10am to 5.30pm with the last hire at 4.30pm. Recumbents are the low, laid-back machines that look wrong and ride beautifully, and a park with a flat perimeter path is the right place to try one. It is worth ringing ahead if you need a particular size or type, because the stand is a small operation.

The route is the broad path that runs right round the park, the same one on which dogs may be walked off the lead. It is level, which is the reason the park works for cycling in a way that Crystal Palace Park, up the hill, does not. Our page on cycling in London covers hiring a bike elsewhere in the city.

What else is in Dulwich Park

The American Garden is the set piece: a rhododendron collection that Queen Mary came to see often enough to have a gate named after her, and which is at its best in May. Two smaller gardens are better than their names suggest. The dry garden is a working demonstration of plants that survive with very little water, which after several dry London summers has stopped being a curiosity. The winter garden is planted for colour in the months when the rest of the park has none.

The Francis Peek Centre in the middle of the park runs a programme of activities and has lavatories and a view across the grass. Outside it you will find four outdoor table tennis tables with bats and balls lent by the cafe, a free outdoor gym, tennis courts, cricket nets on a first-come basis, and a bowling green whose season runs from April to October.

The cafe is the Dulwich Clock, open from 8am to 5.30pm and to 6pm on Saturdays; it held a hygiene rating of 5 at its last inspection. Volunteers work on the grounds on the first Saturday of each month, and there is a free guided walk every Wednesday at 10am, meeting inside College Gate.

Peckham Rye: the park, the common and Blake's angels

The distinction to hold on to is that Peckham Rye is two things. The Common is open grass, open at all hours, with no gates; the Park behind it is a Victorian enclosure with a stream, a lake, woodland and formal gardens, and it is locked in the evening like Dulwich.

The common is the piece with the story. William Blake's first biographer recorded that as a boy Blake saw a tree on Peckham Rye filled with angels, and the anecdote has followed the place ever since. There is no plaque, no marked tree and nothing to look at: what you get is a large flat green with traffic down one side, and the knowledge of what someone once claimed to have seen on it.

Inside the enclosed half of Peckham Rye

The park is the better half for walking. Sexby Gardens is a formal garden with rose pergolas; the Japanese Garden opened in 1908 and its shelter was restored in 2005; the arboretum holds the picnic area and is a dog-free zone, which is worth knowing whichever side of that you are on. The School Nature Garden has a small stream with a pond-dipping platform and log seating, built for school groups but open to look at.

There is also a skate park with a metal mini ramp, an adventure playground and an outdoor gym renewed in 2023. The cafe sits in the round building on Strakers Road, trades on the food hygiene register as Colicci at The Round and was rated 5 at its last inspection; the council gives its hours as 8am to 6.30pm.

Walking between them, and how long the day takes

An hour in each park is enough for a walk and a coffee. Add the boats or the cycle hire and Dulwich alone becomes a half-day with children. The walk between them, from Fireman's Alley along Lordship Lane and down into the Colyton Road entrance, takes about twenty minutes by Transport for London's own journey planner and runs through East Dulwich, which has the shops the two parks lack.

The natural order is Dulwich first and Peckham second, because the food is at the Peckham end. Dulwich Picture Gallery is a short walk west of the park, in the village and makes a better start to the day than an add-on at the end, and Rye Lane at the far end has the West African and Caribbean food that is the real reason to finish in Peckham.

If you would rather climb than walk on the flat, the Horniman Museum and Gardens are uphill from Peckham Rye and free, and Nunhead Cemetery is a short walk north-east for something entirely different. Our guide to south London's big free estates covers the others in this half of the city, and London with children has more free days of this kind.

The month that decides which one to pick

In May, go to Dulwich for the rhododendrons in the American Garden; there is nothing at Peckham Rye that competes. In high summer, Peckham Rye wins on space, because the common absorbs a crowd and Dulwich's lawns fill up. In autumn both are good and Dulwich is better, because of the old oaks. In December Dulwich has the winter garden and the advantage that everything you might want is within a few hundred metres of one cafe.

The one month to be careful about is also December. Closing at 4.30pm means a park visit has to be a morning or an early afternoon, and the boat hire and cycle stand may not be running at all. Peckham Rye Common, with no gates, is the only part of either site you can walk across after dark.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to hire a boat at Dulwich Park?

Southwark Council lists £4 for a child aged 15 or under and £17 for a family of two adults and two children, each for a 30-minute session on a pedalo or rowing boat. No adult-only price is published, and hire hours change each year, so check at the boathouse before you join the queue.

What time do Dulwich Park and Peckham Rye Park close?

Both open at 7.30am daily and close by sunset on Southwark's monthly schedule, which runs from 4.30pm in December to 9.30pm in June and July. Peckham Rye Common, as distinct from the enclosed park beside it, has no gates and is open at all hours.

Can you walk from Dulwich Park to Peckham Rye?

Yes, in about twenty minutes if you leave Dulwich Park by Fireman's Alley onto Lordship Lane and head east through East Dulwich. Starting from the cafe in the middle of Dulwich Park and finishing at the cafe in Peckham Rye Park is closer to thirty-five minutes.

Where did William Blake see the angels?

On Peckham Rye, according to his first biographer, who recorded that Blake as a boy saw a tree there full of angels. Nothing marks the spot and no particular tree is identified, so treat it as a story attached to the common rather than something to go and find.

Which park is better with small children?

Dulwich, because the boats, the recumbent cycle hire, the large playground and the flat carriage drive are all in one place and the lavatories are easy to find. Peckham Rye has the adventure playground and the skate park, which suit older children better, and more space to run.

Sources

• Southwark Council - Dulwich Park: facilities, boat prices, cycle hire, history (checked September 2026)
• Southwark Council - Peckham Rye Park and Common (checked September 2026)
• Southwark Council - Park opening and closing times by month (checked September 2026)
• Food Standards Agency - Hygiene rating, The Dulwich Clock, Dulwich Park (checked September 2026)
• Food Standards Agency - Hygiene rating, Colicci at The Round, Strakers Road (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Journey Planner, Lordship Lane to Colyton Road on foot (checked September 2026)