From toy shops to museums of play: the 11 best London toy stops for kids young and old

If you grew up in the glow of Saturday-morning cartoons, when cereal was 80% sugar and 20% brightly coloured marketing, London can feel like one enormous nostalgia bomb just waiting to go off. For Gen Xers, the city is more than museums and overpriced flat whites - it’s a living treasure map of toys, games, and pop-culture relics that survived the great attic clear-outs of the ‘80s and ‘90s. And yes, some of them don’t even need an app.

Whether you once hoarded Star Wars figures, saved pocket money for a single Matchbox car or treated your Atari joystick like a sacred artefact, London has pockets of pure joy that will transport you straight back to an era of mixtapes, ZX Spectrums and Saturday trips to the toy shop “just to look.”

From legendary retailers to unexpectedly grown-up museums of play, the capital is bursting with experiences that prove toys aren’t just for kids — they’re for anyone who remembers when the only thing you had to charge was a battery-powered robot that sounded slightly possessed.

So, dust off your sense of wonder, London’s playground awaits — and this time, you don’t need a parent to give you permission.

1. Young V&A
Cambridge Heath Rd, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PA

Formerly known as the V&A Museum of Childhood, The Young V&A is where nostalgia lives like no other place in the capital. Nestled in Bethnal Green, this temple to tiny humans and their oversized imaginations recently underwent a £13 million makeover and the transformation will make your eyes widen, leave your mouth-open and cause an inability to stop taking photos. The building, a vast iron structure, once a Victorian boiler house, hosts a vast amount of childhood memories and memorabilia.

There is a degree of organised chaos across the three main galleries: Imagine, Play, and Design. Each one a love letter to the memory of being small.

A doll's house collection deserving its own standing ovation, you can walk between the houses, with peepholes offering views into eccentric living rooms full of optical illusions. The toy collection is where things get properly eclectic, with Incredibles figures sitting next to bonkers 1970s puppets, Barbie dolls and Victorian praxinoscopes (Victorian GIFs, for want of a better description), rocking horses to space hoppers, wind-up tin toys to battery-driven cars. One moment you're cooing over a Victorian pram, the next you're having a crisis as you spot the exact toy you had in 1987 now sitting behind museum glass with a label reading "late 20th century." There is little that’ll make you feel ancient quite like seeing your childhood classified as an artefact.

Interactive displays, workshops, an Open Studio, and an amphitheatre-style stage, the Young V&A is a joyous celebration of the fact that we were all once tiny humans who thought a cardboard box was a spaceship. Highly recommended for anyone who's ever been a child, which is, statistically speaking, most of us.

2. Battersea Power Station (Transformers, LEGO, Peppa Pig and more)
Electric Boulevard, Battersea Power Station, London SW11 8BJ

This cathedral-like art deco building is home to a pair of toy outlets right next to each other: one devoted to the Transformers franchise and the other to Peppa Pig. The first is a mini-temple paying homage to 40 years of shapeshifting with graffiti murals, voice-activated robots, AR trading card games and more. Take a pose with life-sized statues, fill up your Energon Cube before braving the omnivorous outlet next door.

The world’s first standalone Peppa Pig store will delight ankle-biters, for them it’ll be as close as they’ve been to Peppatown (ok, there is a theme park at Paultons).

This 2,800 square-foot shrine is like a real-life muddy puddle for fans, but first you’ll be needing to peel their eyes away from the episodes playing on loop and get some snaps sat on a London bus seat amongst the plethora of Peppa playthings. There are collaborations with Emma Bridgewater housewares and Hummingbird Bakery treats so you’ll transform your small persons obsession into a full lifestyle brand experience. Gulp. Engineered to extract maximum cash you’ll enjoy both. Your wallet may not.

Don't miss taking a trip up inside the very Willy Wonka-esque lift that goes up inside one of the infamous chimney stacks — a tad spendy but a totally unique experience awaits.

Oh! And there's a great LEGO shop in Battersea Power Station too, even if it's outmatched by a giant one further down this list...

3. Pollocks Toy Museum Leadenhall Market
Unit 32-33, Leadenhall Market, London, EC3V 1LR

Currently searching for a new full-time home, the Pollocks museum occupies a pop-up in this quite stunning Victorian market bang in the middle of the city. So, Pollock's may for the time being be a delightfully homeless toy museum squatting in temporary digs and with limited opening hours, but this just combines to make a visit that bit more exclusive.

A showcase of antique toy theatres and puppets awaits inside, curated by that Benjamin Pollock himself, and once sold from his Hoxton shop back when Queen Victoria was still unamused.

In addition is an impressive collection of Pearly Kings and Queens regalia including a jacket discovered in a Scottish barn and a celebration of one Henry Croft, an 1880s rat catcher who allegedly found 60,000 pearly buttons washed up by the Thames and promptly began this right knees-up as a bedazzled philanthropist.

Free to get in, donate what you can to keep this Victorian toy theatre culture alive. It is a magnificently eccentric place, a charity-run refuge for obsolete playthings tucked next to insurance brokers and banks.

4. Hamleys Regent Street
188-196 Regent Street, London, W1B 5BT, United Kingdom

Before you step into the world's oldest toy shop, stand on the opposite side of Regent Street and admire the entire magnificent building — before you build up the bravery to face the over-excited entertainers on the door.

Founded in 1760 as Noah's Ark this seven-floor, 54,000-square-foot monument to capitalist whimsy is an assault on your senses from the second the theatrical staff members start juggling remote-control helicopters at you and share magic tricks. With a basement devoted to pop culture and collectibles, the ground floor features life-sized plush giraffes that cost more than most monthly rents, while upper floors house all the toy brands you know and plenty you don’t.

Your selfie-o-meter will be off-the-scale here — make it to the top floor for sugar-infused treats and past the oversized Optimus to a LEGO outlet with a make-it area, and life-sized brick-based King Charles. Ask for Mark — he runs the show up here and to say he is larger than life and full of nuggets about the Danish brick is an understatement. The manic energy of staff will question how much effort you really put into your day at the office.

5. Novelty Automation
1a Princeton St, London, WC1R 4AX

Tucked behind a shabby shopfront near the British Museum lies this arcade of satirical hand-made machines created by cartoonist and engineer Tim Hunkin.

No outlandish LED displays of amusement arcades, the outcomes of these machines are far better than achieving a high-score or collecting thousands of tickets in return for an underwhelming prize. Free to enter, you’ll need to purchase some tokens to use with each machine.

Will “Test Your Nerve” appeal? Just stick your hand beneath a huge, red-eyed, growling dog and hold your nerve, practice money laundering maybe, being probed by an alien or physically climb the housing ladder. No trip is complete without a trip to the expressive photobooth, the very best bit of memorabilia you can take away from this place – sorry, no spoilers on what lies in wait inside...

This satirical spot embraces modern anxieties with motors, pulleys and warped humour. Part social commentary, part mechanical theatre and entirely bonkers. There are 34 games to entertain, and it is all as cheap as chips but twice as tasty.

6. LEGO Leicester Square
3 Swiss Court, London, W1D 6AP

Step into the LEGO Store at Leicester Square and tumble into this AFOL (adult fan of LEGO) dream where everything is made of tiny plastic rectangles and your wallet weeps with joy.

At the entrance you’re greeted with a magnificent LEGO Big Ben, a 375,000-replica build of 007’s Aston Martin (yes, you can sit inside) and a brick-built tube train carriage for more snaps. It is sensory overload — so many sets, walls of colourful bricks organised with the precision of a Swiss watch factory and kids screaming like Vikings discovering treasure.

A Mosaic Maker machine is pure sorcery, letting you upload a photo before telling you exactly which bricks to buy to recreate your face in LEGO form. Finally, a way to immortalise yourself that's both narcissistic and a bit educational!

Over to the Pick-a-Brick wall, adults elbow past toddlers to grab that perfect shade of teal. The staff here really do deserve medals for maintaining their composure while watching grown humans experience existential crises over brick selection.

You’ll leave clutching your bag of precious bricks with swagger convinced you've just made a sound investment in "personal creative development." Five studs out of five.

Make a day of it

Happy to head beyond the Big Smoke? Here's a spot just outside of London that's well worth a visit...

7. WonderWorks Margate
Westwood Industrial Estate, Margate, Kent, CT9 4JX

Nestled in the historic factory that became home to Hornby Hobbies in 1954, Hasbro WonderWorks is essentially a shrine to some of Britain's most beloved brands, trains, slot-cars and sprues.

Delightfully niche, wonderfully nerdy, utterly charming. Your inner child will squeal; your partner will check their watch.

Worth a browse:

• 8. Bandi Cross Camden: Tucked away in Highbury, this niche boutique is entirely dedicated to the beloved miniature animal figurines and accessories.
• 9. The Guards Toy Soldier Centre: For collectors and history buffs it offers an extensive collection of hand-painted military miniatures. 
• 10. Forbidden Planet: The pop culture capital of London. So much stuff you’ll want — or have never heard of, waiting to become your next obsession/
• 11. Miffy Shop: Lots to see and buy upstairs and a delightful gallery in the basement.

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