Norwich Castle's medieval keep is open again, at £15.30 booked online. Ten more days out in the city cost nothing. Prices and opening times checked this week.

The thing to do in Norwich this month is the one that has been shut for years. Norwich Castle’s medieval keep has reopened, and with it the recreated royal apartments of Henry I, a new gallery of medieval objects built with the British Museum, and a lift that takes anyone up to the battlements.

That is the paid headline. The quieter fact about this city is how much of it is free: a cathedral that charges nothing and runs free guided tours six days a week, one of the oldest open-air markets in the country, six parks with Green Flag awards, and a national art collection at the university that lets you decide what to pay.

Every price and opening time below was checked against the venue’s own site on 9 August 2026.

What a day out actually costs

Adult admission prices for Norwich attractions, checked 9 August 2026 Six Norwich attractions charge nothing: the cathedral, the market, The Forum, Dragon Hall, the six Green Flag parks, and the Sainsbury Centre which asks visitors to pay what they can. Paid entry runs from the Plantation Garden at 2 pounds and a Norwich Castle twilight ticket at 2 pounds 50, through Strangers Hall at 6 pounds 75 and the Museum of Norwich at 7 pounds 74, to the cathedral Upper Level Tour at 10 pounds and Norwich Castle at 15 pounds 30 online or 17 pounds on the door. Half of the best of Norwich costs nothing Adult admission, checked against each venue on 9 August 2026. Online prices where the venue offers one. Norwich Cathedral FREE free, donations welcome Norwich Market FREE free, 190 stalls The Forum FREE free, public building Dragon Hall FREE free drop-in, Sun and Mon Six Green Flag parks FREE free, always open Sainsbury Centre FREE pay if and what you can Plantation Garden £2 Norwich Castle, last hour £2.50 twilight, door only Strangers' Hall £6.75 online Museum of Norwich £7.74 online Cathedral Upper Level Tour £10 plus booking fee Norwich Castle £15.30 online, £17 on the door A Norfolk Museums Pass is £45.90 online, which is exactly three Norwich Castle tickets. It covers the castle, Strangers' Hall and the Museum of Norwich plus seven more museums for a year, so three museum days in twelve months makes it the cheaper route. The castle is also free to anyone on a means-tested benefit.

Norwich Castle

Castle Hill, NR1 3JU. Open daily 10am to 5pm. Adult £15.30 online, £17 on the door; child aged 4 to 17 £13.05 online, £14.50 on the door; under 4s free.

The keep was built as a royal palace for William the Conqueror and finished by his son Henry I, and the Royal Palace Reborn project has put the palace back inside it: recreated twelfth-century rooms, furnished, with the sights and sounds to go with them. The Gallery of Medieval Life is a partnership with the British Museum, the first medieval gallery the British Museum has done outside London, and holds more than 900 objects. A new lift and staircase mean every floor from the basement to the battlements is now reachable, which the museum describes as making this the most accessible castle in Britain. The National Lottery Heritage Fund put £13m into the project.

Your ticket also covers the art galleries, the archaeology and natural history displays and the Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum, all in the same building. Norwich Castle was a finalist for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2026.

Three things worth knowing before you book:

  • Booking online at least a day ahead saves 10%.
  • A twilight ticket is £2.50 for the last hour of the day. You cannot book it online, only on the door.
  • Entry is free for anyone receiving a means-tested benefit including Universal Credit and Pension Credit, for all children in households on those benefits, and for a companion of a disabled visitor. Bring proof.

One practical limit: because of the age of the building, only five wheelchair users can be above ground floor level in the keep at any one time. Tell them when you book if that affects your party.

Norwich Cathedral

Cathedral Close. Open daily from 7.30am. Entry free, donations welcome.

There is no entry fee at all, which puts Norwich in a shrinking group of English cathedrals. Free guided tours run Monday to Saturday every hour from 10am to 3pm, start near the Font in the Nave, last about an hour and need no booking. The guides are volunteers and the tours are subject to their availability, and groups of eight or more cannot be taken on the free tour.

Paid extras are modest. The Upper Level Tour, on most Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10.30am, gets you behind the scenes at the east end for £10 plus a booking fee and must be booked. Specialist tours run up to four times a month on rotating subjects, last about 90 minutes and also need booking; the Graffiti of Norwich Cathedral tour runs on 15 August 2026, and there are library tours on 28 August, 25 September and 23 October.

Running until 4 October 2026 is the Benedictine Art Project, a free open-air exhibition in the grounds about the cathedral’s monastic past.

The cathedral is a ten-minute walk from Norwich station along the riverside.

Sainsbury Centre

University of East Anglia, Norfolk Road, NR4 7TJ. Tuesday to Friday 9am to 6pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am to 5pm, closed Mondays. Pay if and what you can.

The Sainsbury Centre operates a Universal Ticket priced from free up to £20, and you decide. That one ticket covers the permanent collection, the lower and mezzanine galleries and the outdoor Sculpture Park, with no separate exhibition charge on top. Galleries open at 9.30am on weekdays even though the building opens at 9am.

It is on the UEA campus rather than in the city, which makes it the natural pair with a walk round the broad and the lake rather than a city centre afternoon.

Norwich Market

Gentleman’s Walk. Monday to Saturday, 8.30am to 5.30pm. Free.

Over 190 stalls, six days a week, in the middle of the city under the coloured canopies. It is one of the oldest open-air markets in the country and it is still a working market rather than a heritage exhibit: street food, fresh produce, vintage clothes, repairs and hardware. There is no dedicated parking, which is the point of the park and ride sites on our roadworks and travel page.

The Plantation Garden

4 Earlham Road, NR2 3DB. Open 9am to 6pm April to September, 9am to 4pm October to March, every day of the year. £2.

A Victorian garden built in a disused chalk quarry, hidden behind Earlham Road and easy to walk past. Two pounds is the entire cost and it is open 365 days a year, which makes it the best-value half hour in the city.

Two small museums with awkward opening hours

Both are run by Norfolk Museums Service, both are covered by the same pass as the castle, and both are shut more often than they are open. Check before you walk.

  • Museum of Norwich at the Bridewell, Bridewell Alley, NR2 1AQ. Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4.30pm. From £7.74 adult, £6.57 child booked online. The city’s industrial and working history, in a medieval merchant’s house.
  • Strangers’ Hall, Charing Cross, NR2 4AL. Wednesday and Saturday only, 10am to 4pm. From £6.75 adult, £5.85 child booked online. A Tudor merchant’s house lived in by mayors and merchants since the fourteenth century, with an Elizabethan knot garden.

If you are likely to do three museum visits in a year, the Norfolk Museums Pass is the cheaper route: £45.90 for an adult booked online, £51 at the door, £21.60 for a child, £41.40 concession and £115.20 for a family of two adults and up to five children. It gives free unlimited entry for a year to ten museums, including all three Norwich ones.

Dragon Hall

115 to 123 King Street, NR1 1QE. Drop-in Sunday and Monday, 10am to 3pm. Free.

A fifteenth-century merchant’s trading hall on King Street, now home to the National Centre for Writing. The weekly drop-in hours are free. So are the guided heritage tours on the third Monday of each month at 2pm, though capacity is limited and booking ahead is recommended; donations towards the building are welcome rather than required.

The Forum

Millennium Plain. Free.

A public building in the middle of the city that anyone can walk into, with the Millennium Library inside, recently refurbished and reopened. The programme in the atrium is mostly free: exhibitions, markets and fairs. Coming up are the Video Game Retro Market on 15 August 2026 and a Norfolk Showcase art exhibition. It is also the obvious wet-weather fallback in a city where most of the free attractions are outdoors.

The parks

Norwich has six green spaces holding a Green Flag Award, confirmed again in July 2026: Eaton Park, Waterloo Park, Jenny Lind Park, Mousehold Heath, Heigham Park and Kett’s Heights. Three of them, Eaton Park, Waterloo Park and Kett’s Heights, also hold Green Heritage Site Accreditation for the way their historic features are looked after; it is Kett’s Heights’ first year with it.

All six are free and open. Eaton Park has pitch and putt and crazy golf, at £13 for a group of four or £4.50 for one. Mousehold Heath is the big one, a wooded common on the hill north east of the centre with the best views back over the city.

Castle Gardens, below the castle mound, reopened its Whiffler Theatre area on 7 August 2026 with a new community mural.

Norwich Puppet Theatre

St James, Whitefriars, NR3 1TN.

A puppet theatre in a converted medieval church, running a full programme. In August 2026: the DaSilva Marionette Circus Troupe on Saturday 15 August, Murder She Boat!, a murder mystery, on 20, 21 and 22 August, and Lunatraktors on Saturday 29 August. Prices vary by show, so check the listing.

A day plan that costs almost nothing

If you want the city without spending: start at the market when it opens, walk up to the cathedral for the 10am free tour, cut through the Close to the river, walk up to Mousehold Heath for the view, come back down for the Plantation Garden at £2, and finish in The Forum. Total outlay, two pounds and whatever you put in the cathedral’s donation box.

If you want the castle, add £15.30 and book online the day before.

Coming from London, the cathedral is a ten-minute walk from the station and the market five minutes beyond it, so a day trip works without a car; the train timetable and fares are on a separate page.

Frequently asked questions

Is Norwich Castle open?

Yes. The medieval keep has reopened after the Royal Palace Reborn project, and the museum is open daily from 10am to 5pm. Adult tickets are £15.30 booked online at least a day ahead, or £17 on the door.

What is there to do in Norwich for free?

The cathedral, including its free hourly guided tours; Norwich Market; The Forum and the Millennium Library; Dragon Hall’s Sunday and Monday drop-in; and the six Green Flag parks. The Sainsbury Centre lets you pay what you can, which can be nothing.

How much is Norwich Cathedral?

Nothing. There is no entry fee and the guided tours are free too. Donations are invited. The only paid options are the £10 Upper Level Tour and the specialist tours.

Is the Norfolk Museums Pass worth it?

It costs £45.90 for an adult booked online, which is exactly three Norwich Castle online tickets. If you expect three or more museum visits in a year across Norwich Castle, Strangers’ Hall, the Museum of Norwich and seven other Norfolk museums, it pays for itself.

What is there to do in Norwich when it rains?

Norwich Castle, the Museum of Norwich at the Bridewell on Tuesday to Saturday, Strangers’ Hall on Wednesday and Saturday, the Sainsbury Centre, and The Forum, which is free and has the library in it.

Are Norwich attractions free for people on benefits?

Norwich Castle is. Entry is free for anyone receiving a means-tested benefit including Universal Credit and Pension Credit, and for all children in households receiving them. Bring proof of eligibility.

Sources

Prices and opening hours change, and several of these venues open only two or three days a week. Everything here was checked against the venue’s own website on 9 August 2026; confirm before you travel.