Reynolds Sports Centre

Reynolds Sports Centre sits in Greater London as a proper working leisure facility rather than a tourist spectacle, which means you'll find genuine swimmers and badminton players going about their business rather than crowds queuing for attractions. It's the kind of place locals use for their fitness routines - pools, courts, gym equipment - and the honest truth is it's most useful if you're staying nearby and need to burn off energy without travelling far.

Families with kids will find it serviceable. The pools are decent enough for a swim if the weather turns grim, though don't expect anything theme-park flashy. If you've got teenagers desperate for a basketball court or a proper gym session, it delivers. Anyone chasing a lazy poolside afternoon with cocktails should look elsewhere entirely.

The real value comes if you're basing yourself at Lovat Parks, just down the road - that's when a sports centre becomes handy rather than a detour. Between days out in central London, having somewhere to exhaust the children with a proper swim beats queuing for yet another museum. Opening hours and admission prices vary, so ringing ahead makes sense before you plan around it.

It's not an attraction in the tourist sense. It's infrastructure. Use it if you need it, skip it if you don't. But for a rainy Tuesday when everyone's tired and fractious? It's actually rather brilliant.