Street Art and Public Sculpture in London: Leake Street, the Fourth Plinth and Free Trails

Why outdoor art works for a date

Public art has no ticket, no opening slot and no table to book. You can walk past a sculpture, stop if it is interesting and move on if it is not, which takes some of the pressure out of a first meeting. Most of the places in this guide are in busy central areas with cafes nearby, so a short walk between works can end somewhere warm.

The catch is that outdoor art changes. Murals get painted over, temporary sculptures are rotated out and commissions end. Everything below was read on the organisers' own pages, or on Wikipedia, on 14 October 2026. Where a page did not give a date, an opening time or a location, we say so rather than fill the gap. Check the organiser's site the week you go.

Leake Street tunnel, Waterloo

Leake Street is a road tunnel in Lambeth that runs off York Road and under the platforms and tracks of Waterloo station, with the postcode SE1 7NN. Wikipedia gives its length as about 300 metres and describes it as a place where graffiti is legal and promoted. The walls were first decorated during the Cans Festival, which Banksy organised on 3 to 5 May 2008, and the festival ran again over the August bank holiday that year.

Wikipedia says ownership passed from Eurostar to Network Rail on 14 November 2008 and through traffic was restricted to pedestrians. The tunnel is painted over constantly, so what you see will not match photographs from even a few weeks earlier.

The arches along the tunnel are now marketed as Leake Street Arches. Its website calls the tunnel London's longest legal graffiti wall and lists venues including Mamuska, a Polish food and drinks bar, Passyunk Avenue, an American-style dive bar, and Draughts, a board game cafe with sharing plates. It also advertises graffiti workshops with its artists in residence and links to a separate page of tunnel rules. The homepage did not give opening hours for the tunnel itself, so we have not stated any.

• Leake Street ArchesLegal graffiti tunnel with bars

  Waterloo · Nearest: Waterloo

  About 300 metres of permitted graffiti under Waterloo station, with bars and a board game cafe in the arches.

Brick Lane and Shoreditch street art

Brick Lane runs through the East End in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, from Swanfield Street in Bethnal Green in the north, through Spitalfields, to Whitechapel High Street in the south. Wikipedia describes a regular display of graffiti on and around the street and names Banksy, Stik, ROA, D*Face, Ben Eine and Omar Hassan among the artists whose work has appeared there.

That list is history, not a promise. Street murals in the area are painted over, damaged or replaced, and no official body keeps an up-to-date map of them. Wikipedia records how quickly the walls turn over: in November 2025 the street was temporarily themed as Yellow Brick Lane for a film promotion, with murals by six artists that stayed until 2 December 2025.

The nearest Tube stations are Aldgate East and Liverpool Street, and Shoreditch High Street on the Overground is closest to the northern end. Wikipedia places the Sunday market at the junction of Cheshire Street and Sclater Street, which gives a walk a fixed point. Food along the street is covered in our neighbourhood food guide, so we have not repeated it here.

• Brick LaneStreet with changing murals

  Spitalfields and Shoreditch · Nearest: Aldgate East or Shoreditch High Street

  Long-running site for graffiti and murals; work changes often, so treat any named piece as possibly gone.

The Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square

The north-west plinth in Trafalgar Square was built in 1841 to a design by Sir Charles Barry and was meant to carry an equestrian statue of William IV, but it stayed empty for lack of money, according to Wikipedia. In 1998 the Royal Society of Arts set up the Fourth Plinth Project, which showed temporary works from 1999 to 2001: Mark Wallinger's Ecce Homo, Bill Woodrow's Regardless of History and Rachel Whiteread's Monument.

Ownership of the square passed to the Mayor of London in 2003, and the Mayor's Fourth Plinth Commission has run since Marc Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant went up in 2005. The GLA says commissions are chosen through public consultation and decision making by the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, an independent panel of artists, journalists and curators, with the Mayor approving the winner.

Past commissions listed by Wikipedia include Antony Gormley's One and Other in 2009, when members of the public occupied the plinth, Yinka Shonibare's Nelson's Ship in a Bottle, Katharina Fritsch's blue cockerel Hahn/Cock, David Shrigley's thumbs-up Really Good, Michael Rakowitz's The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist, Heather Phillipson's The End, Samson Kambalu's Antelope and Teresa Margolles's 850 Improntas, unveiled in September 2024.

The GLA page names Tschabalala Self's Lady in Blue as the current commission, and Wikipedia dates it to 2026. Wikipedia lists Andra Ursuța's untitled work, a hollow equestrian figure in translucent green resin, for 2028. Neither source gave an end date for the current work. The GLA page also has a heading and body text that disagree about which years its winners occupy the plinth, so check it before planning around a change-over.

• Fourth PlinthRotating public sculpture commission

  Trafalgar Square · Nearest: Charing Cross

  The Mayor's commission on the empty north-west plinth; the GLA names Tschabalala Self's Lady in Blue as current.

Art on the Underground

Art on the Underground is Transport for London's art programme. Wikipedia says it launched as Platform for Art in 2000, starting with temporary works on a disused platform at Gloucester Road, and took its current name in 2007. Artists have designed the cover of the pocket Tube map since 2004; Art on the Underground's own site describes Ellen Gallagher's Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish as the 42nd.

The best-known permanent piece is Mark Wallinger's Labyrinth, commissioned in 2013 for the Underground's 150th anniversary, with one work in each of the 270 stations, according to Wikipedia. Wikipedia also lists Daniel Buren's Diamonds and Circles at Tottenham Court Road, Langlands and Bell's Beauty < Immortality at Piccadilly Circus, a memorial to Frank Pick, and Lucy McKenzie's Pleasure's Inaccuracies at Sudbury Town.

For current work, Art on the Underground's site lists Phoebe Boswell's we move through scales of blue at Bethnal Green and Notting Hill Gate, Rudy Loewe's The Congregation at Brixton, and a sound commission by Ain Bailey with Elaine Mitchener on the Jubilee, Northern and Waterloo and City lines. It also lists a Pride audio tour made with OUTbound, TfL's LGBTQ+ staff network, covering five artworks. The site offers a free art map and an interactive Spaghetti Map of permanent works. Seeing station art needs a valid fare unless the work is outside the gateline.

Sculpture in the City

Sculpture in the City is an annual open-air exhibition in the Square Mile, organised by the City of London Corporation and delivered with the cultural studio LACUNA, according to its website. It describes itself as free, with free events through the year.

The site lists nine works currently on display, by Ai Weiwei, Julian Opie, Oliver Bragg, Hannah Starkey, Daniel Silver, Maya Rose Edwards, Samuel Ross, Andrew Sabin and Elisa Artesero. Locations are on a downloadable current display map dated September 2026, and there is a separate family trail map. The free Bloomberg Connects app carries audio and notes from the artists.

The homepage did not give the exhibition's closing date, so we cannot say how long this set of works stays.

• Sculpture in the CityFree outdoor sculpture exhibition

  City of London

  Nine works by artists including Ai Weiwei and Julian Opie, placed around the Square Mile; map and app are free.

The Line, Stratford to North Greenwich

The Line is a public art trail in east London that links Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and The O2, following the waterways and the line of the Greenwich Meridian, according to its website. It describes the outdoor programme as free.

Works pictured on its homepage include Antony Gormley's Quantum Cloud from 2000, Gary Hume's Liberty Grip from 2008, Laura Ford's Bird Boy from 2011, Yinka Ilori's Types of Happiness, Helen Cammock's On Wind Tides and a work by Madge Gill at Cody Dock. The site did not state the trail's length or the total number of works, so we have not guessed.

The website has a downloadable map with written directions and a location feature, and a free guide on Bloomberg Connects. Because the trail ends at The O2, you can walk part of it and finish near North Greenwich station rather than doing it all.

• The LinePublic art trail

  Stratford to Greenwich Peninsula

  Free outdoor trail between Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and The O2, including Antony Gormley's Quantum Cloud.

Before you go

• Download the map first. Sculpture in the City and The Line both publish maps and use the free Bloomberg Connects app, and works are easy to miss without them.
• Expect murals to have changed. Leake Street and Brick Lane are repainted often, so a piece in an old photo may be gone.
• Check the Fourth Plinth page before a special trip, because the GLA did not give an end date for the current commission.
• Station artworks inside the gateline need a valid fare, so plan Art on the Underground stops along a journey you are already making.
• Dress for outdoors. Every place here except the Tube is in the open air, and The Line runs alongside water.

Questions people ask

Is graffiti really legal in Leake Street?

Wikipedia describes Leake Street as a place where graffiti is legal and promoted, and the Leake Street Arches website calls it London's longest legal graffiti wall and invites street artists to paint. It links to a separate page of tunnel rules, which painters should read first. This does not make graffiti legal elsewhere in London.

What is on the Fourth Plinth now?

The GLA names Tschabalala Self's Lady in Blue as the current Fourth Plinth commission, and Wikipedia dates it to 2026. Wikipedia lists an untitled work by Andra Ursuța for 2028. Neither source gave an end date for the current work, so check the GLA page before you go.

Can I see Banksy in London?

Banksy organised the 2008 Cans Festival that first decorated Leake Street, and Wikipedia lists Banksy among artists whose work has appeared around Brick Lane. Street pieces are often painted over or removed, and none of our sources confirmed a Banksy currently on view, so we cannot point you to one.

Do any of these cost money?

Sculpture in the City and The Line both describe themselves as free, the Fourth Plinth is in a public square, and Leake Street and Brick Lane are public streets. Art on the Underground works inside stations usually need a Tube fare to reach. Workshops and venues at Leake Street Arches charge separately.