London Kingston Upon Thames info for visit

[McCallington]

We are visiting a couple for their surprise 40th anniversary party so I cannot ask them directly. We have looked at nearby-ish hotels, probably a Premier Inn and there is one in Kingston Upon Thames which uses the NCP car park on Booth Road. As we live quite a distance away we are thinking of making a mini holiday of it and visiting The Big Smoke.

Questions we have, is this a safe area at night? How easy can we travel into London from here on the train and anything else we should know? I thought I would ask the MN collective for their thoughts.

There is a direct train service between Kingston and London. It's bit of a slow train. If you went to Surbiton station instead, then you can get a fast train into central. The trains from both stations go to Waterloo.

The town is relatively safe at night and has it's own theatre (The Rose) which can have good things on at.

There is also a good bus service if you want to go to Richmond, Wimbledon or visit Hampton Court. If you like all things Korean, then the nearby town of New Malden is worth a visit.

We went to a wedding in Kingston upon Thames last year. Parking was difficult. I ended up downloading the Just Park app and parking in someone's drive.
We felt safe there at night though.

Kingston's safe and nice. You are not far from Richmond and also Hampton Court Palace both with a visit.

Thames river boat is nice. Or further up the Thames you could do the Uber clipper boat to somewhere like Battersea power station.

Thank you, this is why we are thinking of dropping the car at the NCP car park and then trains into central London to explore. We have visited Hampton Court, so beautiful but alas Dh is not as keen on this sort of place as I am, to be fair I did keep him there for a very long time.

Thinking more central London, food, explore, take in the sights, I am keen on visiting the Tower of London, I love history.

Fallow restaurant on St James Market is amazing.

Sky garden for the view

Walk along the Southbank

Take a walking tour to find some hidden history of London's streets

Borough market

Excellent, thank you @LondonLovie , I have watched lots of hidden London or just tours of parts of London and the history. Thank you for the suggestions, I will investigate.

When you say nearby-ish, where exactly is the wedding?

@TwigTheWonderKid I think you are mixing up the OP with me, who went to a wedding.

Oh yeap , sorry, chemo brain!

@McCallington where is the party?

Sorry to hear that @TwigTheWonderKid
I hope you make a full recovery.

@TwigTheWonderKid I too hope you make a full recovery. Chemo is completely shit.

The party is at someone else's house (not the couple's) which is why we have never been and the invite is through another person, they are trying to get the message out to as many friends as they can without revealing the party. Due to distance so we thought we would make a few days of it and Premier Inn is a good hotel, you know what you are getting and the NCP car park seems to have good parking capacity rather than trying to get parked on a teeny hotel car park and risking not being able to park. Hence why we chose the Kingston Premier Inn for price and parking.

We will be driving to the party on the Saturday but will leave the car in the car park to go exploring London for a few days beforehand and wanted to know how safe it was walking back to the hotel in that area when we get off the train. The hotel will be our base which we will be coming back to.

Thanks both.

So @McCallington is the party actually in Kingston?

Take a walk over to Teddington through Bushy Park.

Kingston is very safe and really lovely to visit, the NCP car park will obviously feel dicey (as they all do!). Train is 30 minutes into Central London.

I live in Kingston and love it but maybe you should stay somewhere like Wimbledon where you can get trains into London in 15 minutes and trains to Kingston in 15 minutes?

@DrRichardWebber thanks, Wimbledon has either no parking at the hotel or the other one has limited. We have stayed in Premier Inns all over and coming back sometimes late at night and not getting a car parking space is problematic especially when you don't know where is safe to park. So in cities where parking is always limited we tend to stay in one that has a large car park like the NCP to give us far more probability of getting parked.

@TwigTheWonderKid I'd rather not say exactly where the party is, I think I fucked up saying ruby to be fair and it is a bit outing, not that these friends are on MN but I am not sure how many people make it to 40 years married. It is just quite lovely that they will celebrate that together.

@Newbalancebeam looks lovely, I will add it to my list of potential places.

IIRC, the Premier Inn in Kingston is sited on one of its least attractive roads over a run down shopping centre. It's not the most inviting part of town but should be safe. But the rest of Kingston is lovely - the market square is really pretty and there are loads of cafes along the river for breakfast.

We had a lovely walk through Bushey Park before we went to the wedding.

I agree that Kingston itself is rather nice. We walked through the town to the reception from the register office.

The traffic is awful though, so allow plenty of time to get there.

IIRC Kingston is lovely and safe to walk around at night. The NCP will be oh so pricey though. Train goes straight into London, its not slow though, about 25 mins and far quicker than bussing it to Surbiton and catchng train from there. HC Palace near so is the park with cafes in it. Also you have Richmond and Twickenham nearby.

I love Kingston. It is very safe and that Premier Inn is ok but as pp said it isn’t in the nicest spot. I think this is the case for most of the hotels though. It is not the greatest place to drive around but there’s shopping and restaurants by the river. There’s one train that takes around 50 minutes ish and one that’s about 30 into Waterloo. I think there are five or six trains per hour.

Kingston is lovely and a great place to stay, there's shopping, a big John Lewis and a nice Riverside with bars and restaurants. The trains to Waterloo are frequent and only 30 mins or so.

Kingston is so lovely, I have no idea what monasteries you imagine, but I think you are mistaken.

If you are into historical oddities, the dog from the logo of HMV ( His Master's Voice) was called Nipper and is buried under the Lloyd's Bank branch in Kingston. They're is a plaque inside.

This is all brilliant thank you. I don't mind a slow train, we won't be in a rush to get anywhere by train, happy to sit and watch the world go by as we chat. We are thinking we will explore Kingston a little bit when we arrive and then on the remaining days head into London because knowing my luck we would bump into the couple and the whole thing would be rumbled I think this might turn into a few more days than we initially planned, too much to see and experience.

@HappiestSleeping now that is the sort of history I like, the little things that add in to the huge history that is London. I have raced through London once for a meeting and was with someone who grew up in London so I didn't have to look at a tube map or anything, just train down into Kings Cross straight onto tube, off to meeting and then straight back whilst experiencing the crazy that was rush hour tube travel. So no, I have never been as a tourist. I am looking forward to visiting.

Just bear in mind that if you are driving a diesel car you will be subject to the ULEZ charge.