Indoor Archery Range in Greenwich: £35 Taster at Archery Fit

Archery Fit takes no walk-ins. Every session at its indoor archery range in Greenwich has to be booked first, and the standard way in is a £35 coached taster that runs 90 minutes with all equipment provided. The centre sits inside Hatfield House on Merryweather Place, London SE10 8EW, opens until 10pm on weekdays, and has two 18-metre ranges, the same distance used at world-level indoor tournaments.

The address is Hatfield House, Merryweather Place, London SE10 8EW, and the entrance is easy to walk past. The gate is next to the Premier Inn on Greenwich High Road, about 100 yards down the road from the Pure Gym. You press the gate buzzer, dial 888, and walk across the yard to the entrance on your right. If you reach the T-junction of Norman Road and Lovibond Lane, you have gone the long way round.

Greenwich station is a five-minute walk, with Overground trains from London Bridge taking about 10 minutes and DLR trains from Bank taking about 25 minutes. Deptford Bridge DLR is also five minutes away in the other direction. Bus 177 stops at Miller House right outside, and routes 53 and 453 stop at Deptford Bridge. Driving is the awkward option, because parking is pay and display across the road at £7 an hour.

Archery Fit was founded in 2015 by a family of two entrepreneurs, and the premises were designed from scratch for indoor archery. Kate is the head coach and has been a competitive archer since 2001 and a coach since 2002. She won the Russian national championship in 2003 and has coached seven GB national champions at the Junior National Indoor Championships, in 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Her team of coaches, among them Lee, Michael, Martyn, Sharon, Richard, Aoife, Kay, Victoria, Ionut and Alessia, are all described on the club's own site as top-100 UK archers. The club also keeps a gecko called Michal in a clear tank. The people on the front desk, who answer the phone and book you in, are the ones who will tell you which slots are open on the day you ask.

The tasting session costs £35 per person and lasts 90 minutes, coached in a group of up to 10, adults and children together. It follows a fixed plan. You get a five-minute theory induction, ten minutes gearing up, five minutes of warm-up and ten minutes learning basic technique. Then you shoot barebow at targets 6 metres away for 15 minutes before moving back to 12 metres for another 15.

The last stretch is the fun part. Ten minutes go on shooting balloons at 12 metres, followed by a 15-minute mini competition with final tips from the coach, and five minutes for photographs. Staff supervise throughout, and everyone has to follow instructions for safety. Wear comfortable clothes and avoid high heels. The minimum age is 8, and there is no upper limit, since the oldest visitor so far arrived to celebrate his 90th birthday.

If one class hooks you, the beginners course is six 90-minute classes for the price of five, £175 per person, paid upfront and to be finished within three months. You do not choose fixed weekly slots. You book each class when it suits you, so you could finish in three days with two classes a day or spread it across a quarter. The taster counts as the first class of the course.

The course builds in clear steps. Class two puts an Olympic recurve bow in your hands at 12 metres. Class four swaps standard faces for zombie targets. Class five moves back to 18 metres to prepare for the club's shooting test, and class six is that test, which signs you off as an independent archer. After passing, you can learn compound bows or traditional ones, including English longbows and Korean and Hungarian horsebows.

There is no drop-in. The club runs four to ten classes a day, and you reserve by phone, text, email or the enquiry form on archeryfit.com. Online booking is open only to members and people already on a course. Staff reply to enquiries within 24 hours, and most are answered within two hours during opening times, and the FAQ says you can book for today if places are available.

Cancellations need 48 hours' notice, and groups of three or more people have to prepay by card over the phone or by bank transfer. Everyone else can pay on the day in cash or by card. A party or day out for 10 or more people costs £35 per head too, and the centre can take up to 32 guests. Because the club is closed only on 25 December and 1 January, bank holidays are fair game.

Archery Fit opens Monday to Friday from 10am to 10pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 8pm, which works out to about 80 hours a week. Weekday evenings suit people coming straight from work, and the club says it is open all year except the two days around Christmas and New Year. Weekend afternoons are better for families with children, because the eight-year-old minimum makes this a rare central-London activity for kids.

Regulars have two ways to pay if they bring their own bows. A single two-hour session is £15, and a monthly pass at £125 gives unlimited weekday shooting, which the club puts at more than 250 hours a month, plus a free storage slot for your bow. Experienced archers can book a free 15-minute induction, a test session where you score every arrow, before they train alone or with an instructor.

You finish near the top of Greenwich High Road, so the best plan is to walk north toward the river. Greenwich Market is the obvious lunch stop, with food stalls inside the covered market and independent shops around it. Cutty Sark, the tea clipper, sits on the waterfront close by, and the path past the Old Royal Naval College leads on along the Thames.

Archery works the shoulders and forearms harder than people expect, so a sit-down meal afterwards is a sensible plan. Booking an early evening class and eating in Greenwich after it fits well, because the weekday ranges stay open until 10pm. Parking is the one thing to avoid, since the nearest big car park is a ten-minute walk away, outside the Greenwich Picturehouse.

Address: Hatfield House, Merryweather Place, London SE10 8EW. Email: info@archeryfit.com. Taster class £35, six-class course £175, own-bow session £15 for two hours, monthly pass £125. Opening hours are Monday to Friday 10am to 10pm and Saturday and Sunday 10am to 8pm. The price list and the opening times come from the Services & Rates and When & Where pages of the club's official site.

Skip the high heels. Everything else is supplied. If your group is bigger than three, arrange payment in advance and give the team your preferred date and time. When you want to plan the rest of the day around your slot, ask the Karpo APP for lunch, a film or a river walk nearby and fit the whole afternoon together.