South Bank Venues
Walking route guide
Part II: Belvedere Road to your venue!

This page aims to help you reach the Royal National Theatre (Olivier, Lyttelton and Cottesloe theatres), the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room from Waterloo Underground Station.

The monkey is often asked for these directions, and it hopes this guide will help make a complicated part of London easier to negotiate.

For mobility impaired audience members, the Society of London Theatre provide a "photo map" - illustrated walking route to this venue from a near landmark and also Waterloo Station (the nearest fully accessible station) on their website www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk, via the theatre's listing page on that site.

This page is in three parts - just click on the section you require:
PART ONE: Getting from the CORRECT Waterloo station exit to the South Bank itself...

PART TWO: If you take the WRONG Waterloo station exit - the monkey gets you "back on track" with the rest of us!

PART THREE
Now on the South Bank, getting from the windswept Belvedere Road concrete to the actual venues.

Choose the one you require: 

Royal Festival Hall Complex
Royal Festival Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room

Royal National Theatre
Olivier and Lyttelton Theatres 
Cottesloe Theatre

Royal Festival Hall
You already have the building to your left, so walk to the corner, turn left into the space between the concrete and...

Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room:
Walk to the same corner as for the Festival Hall and enter the same paved area...

Aim for the space behind the signboard. A road runs there, cross it and look for a sign on the concrete building ahead. To the left of the sign are doors for a staircase leading up to the shared foyer of these two venues:

Olivier and Lyttelton Theatres:
From the concrete of Belvedere Road, walk straight on:

under that bridge. The road changes name to "Upper Ground" as you go under the bridge.

When you have gone under the bridge, go left at the very next corner:

and walk straight up this road to the end:

Turn right when you reach the corner of it:

Walk straight on, the main doors to both theatres are ahead of you:

If the cafe is open (by the tables!) you can slip in via this entrance, otherwise walk on to the main doors as shown by the arrow above.

Cottesloe Theatre:
From the concrete of Belvedere Road, walk straight on:

under that bridge. The road changes name to "Upper Ground" as you go under the bridge.

Continue straight along Upper Ground towards that tower block you can see in the distance!

When you arrive at the signpost in the photograph below (it is at the far corner of the National Theatre), it will tell you to turn LEFT into a roadway containing an entrance to the National Theatre's underground carpark, among much else:

The Cottesloe Theatre is hidden between some concrete pillars, just after you have cleared the road in this photograph:

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