Archway Archery Range: £25 Have-a-Go in Groups of Six

Experience Archery fits a Have-a-Go lesson for £25 into a 60-minute slot at Caxton House, 129 St John's Way, London N19 3RQ, about five minutes' walk from Archway Underground station. Groups are capped at six people, so a coach is never far from your elbow. Sessions run on Monday and Friday evenings, Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons all year, and you book a specific date through the website before you turn up.

Caxton House sits on St John's Way, the road running up from Archway Tube on the Northern line. The club puts the walk at about five minutes, and it is roughly 12 minutes on foot from Crouch Hill station on the Overground. Buses 41 and 210 run along St John's Way, and the club lists more than a dozen routes in the wider area, including the 4, 17, 43, 134 and 263.

The small group is the selling point. Each Have-a-Go takes six participants, and the hour covers a safety briefing, a demonstration of correct technique, hands-on shooting with recurve bows used barebow, and an introduction to scoring that ends with a small competition. The bows are lightweight recurves chosen so that anyone can pull them, which is why the lessons suit nervous first-timers.

Adults are the main audience, but older children can join from age 10 if they shoot alongside an adult, and anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian to attend. Children aged nine and up have a separate Children and Family Archery Club. The club warns that places are limited and fill quickly, so booking early through the website is the safest route to the date you want.

Leander Pittis founded Experience Archery in 2009 because London had too few indoor places to shoot all year round. He is an Archery GB Level 2 Development Coach, has shot Olympic recurve for nearly 18 years, and started archery while working as an actor, later using the skill in films, adverts and promotional events. The club began with one night of shooting a week and now meets four times.

Other coaches include Phil Darkin, an Archery GB Level 1 coach who shoots barebow and a traditional flatbow, Kevin Wong, who taught himself bow tuning and represented Middlesex in inter-county competitions, and Elitsa Gateva, a Level 2 coach who trained at the National Sports Academy in Bulgaria. All coaches hold current DBS certificates. Recent Google reviews from September 2026 praise a coach named Lee for being patient and funny.

A Have-a-Go lesson costs £25 per person on every available day. Amending a booking needs at least seven days' notice, counted up to the day before, and a change with more notice costs a 20 percent administration fee. Cancelling inside the notice period, or failing to turn up, is non-refundable. The club also sells each lesson as a gift voucher.

If you would rather not share the line with strangers, a one-to-one lesson lasts 75 minutes and starts from £120, and a lesson for two people starts from £150. The number is also the contact point for improver lessons, for archers who want to work on a particular problem.

After a taster, the next step is the five-week beginners course, priced at £135 per person for five hours or more of tuition. It runs on Monday and Friday evenings, starting at 6:15pm or 7:45pm, and on Sunday afternoons, starting at 1:15pm or 2:45pm. Groups are limited to six, and equipment and insurance are included in the fee.

The course teaches both styles of recurve, barebow and Olympic-style sighted, plus safety, etiquette, equipment basics and scoring. By week five you shoot at the full indoor distance of 20 yards. Finishing it lets you shoot with the club at its weekly sessions, and the club says it also makes you eligible to join other UK archery clubs, subject to their own terms.

The club shooting sessions are for people who have finished a course or who hold Archery GB membership. They run Monday 6pm to 7:30pm and 7:30pm to 9pm, Friday on the same two slots, Saturday 11am to 12:30pm, and Sunday 1pm to 3pm and 3pm to 5pm. Adults pay £8.40 with their own kit and £10.40 with the club's equipment, while juniors pay £6.40 and £8.40.

Everyone helps set up and pack away, which keeps costs low and gives regulars a stake in the place. The club also runs a badge scheme, with Portsmouth round awards from 350 points upward, so you can chase milestones. A Portsmouth round is 60 arrows at 20 yards on a 60-centimetre face. The same badge scheme extends to barebow and longbow archers.

Archway is a good base for a half-day out. The Parkland Walk, a former railway line turned nature trail, starts nearby and heads toward Highgate and Finsbury Park. Highgate Village is a pleasant uphill walk, and Hornsey Lane Bridge gives a view across the city skyline. Junction Road, the main street running down from Archway, has plenty of cafes and pubs for a post-session drink.

Address: Caxton House, 129 St John's Way, London N19 3RQ. Email: lee@experiencearchery.com. Have-a-Go £25 for 60 minutes, five-week course £135, club night £8.40 with your own kit. The club's prices, venue and timetable are taken from experiencearchery.com, specifically its Have a Go, Beginner Courses, Our Archery Club and Contact pages.

Wear clothes that let your arms move freely and flat shoes. All equipment is provided, and sessions are run by Archery GB coaches. If you want ideas for food or a walk before your slot, the Karpo APP can suggest places around Archway that fit your timing, so a Friday session turns into a proper evening out rather than a quick hour on the line. Experience Archery has been running since 2009, so the staff know how to look after first-timers who arrive nervous.