The Thames Barrier

I visited here by bus to check it out with view to bring nursery aged children. It will be great. Get off the bus and meander through some landscaped gardens. Then up some steps and wow! There it is! We can marvel and take photos and see the O2 and Shard on the London skyline. We can do a little walk through the tunnel under the barrier. There is a lovely grassed area with lots of picnic benches, a climbing frame and slide where we can have a snack. The all important toilets are behind the cafe and along a walkway and down some steps. They were clean.
I would not take the children into the visitor centre as it would not be appropriate for them. The bus trip, seeing the Thames Barrier up close, the amazing views and a mini picnic in the play area will be just right! And all free!!

I have wanted to go see this myself for many years and finally got to see it from the park it's another thing that's far bigger than your first thought.
I would love to get to see it with some of the gates closing as the tide was out during my visit.
I really like the design of this barrier and the job it does to protect London.

Impressive structure. Can be seen perfectly from the Olympian Way on the south bank which is a lovely walk path curving around the Thames from the O2 arena to Greenwich.

This is a must do if you are cycling around London. Outstanding engineering solución to avoid floods in the town. I would suggest to find out when they are doing maintenance and safety test/checks to see how the system works. A bit far from the city centre but it worth a visit!

An absolute joke. We booked for 2 evening sessions, costing us a reasonable amount of money, but ended up only getting 4 or 5 laps at full speed across the full 30 minutes! It is the 2nd time this has happened to us now. The marshals do their best, but they need to figure out a better system for when some members of the session are essentially incapable of driving without crashing. One person even went the wrong way around the track! We had 4 red flags, and managed just 15 total laps across the two session, of which practically all involved yellow flags. Cannot express how frustrating the whole evening was. Total waste of time. Will not be returning.

An impressive 40 minute walk or 2 miles along the Thames Cycle Path from North Greenwich. There are great views across the Thames as you walk towards Woolwich. Upon arrival at the site, there are interesting details about the Barrier construction on the information board. There are public toilets, but nothing much else. There is no restaurant unless you prebook as a group beforehand. There's a public grass area with picnic benches and great views. TIP: Check on their website when you will be able to watch the barrier closing.

The Barrier is operated once a month for maintenance and test purposes. Details of the next planned closures are listed below.

Please note these times may change as a result of a particular experiment or test that engineers need to carry out or because of the weather. The closure and reopening of the gates may start up to an hour before the listed times. Occasionally closures may be cancelled at short notice due to the Thames Barrier being closed in that month for flood defence purposes or navigational reasons. If you plan to come and watch a test closure, please call us the day before to check it is going ahead.

9 February 2023 Thursday 09:00am to 11:30am

13 March 2023 Monday 09:50am to 12:20pm

11 April 2023 Tuesday 10:30am to 1:00pm

5 star review for the job it does keeping London safe from storm surges and high tides. It’s an impressive feat of engineering. It’s rarely down so you probably won’t get to see it in action but there’s a nice Thames path alongside to get a look at it and admire its scale. There’s also a visitor information centre which I expect will reopen again after Covid.