A deep dive into the best family clubs in West London by London Mum Charlie Avella.
Family clubs used to be just for boujis parents. The exclusive domain of London’s hippest mums and hidden behind a hefty pay wall.
But the pandemic and the rise of remote work have made many parents more eager to connect with others and give their children opportunities to socialise.
New family clubs are also emerging, making memberships more affordable and accessible than ever before.
These clubs are more than just a place to take your kids on a rainy day. They offer a sense of community and a place where parents can relax and get things done while their kids are entertained.
The five clubs reviewed in this article all have something different to offer, from beauty treatments to blow drys to workouts to laptop time. There’s a club here for everyone!
If you are looking for an upgrade to your local mum and tot class this article is for you. But be quick – most of these clubs are so in demand they are operating a waiting list. We take a look at West London’s top 5 Family Clubs to see what all the fuss is about.
Cloud Twelve – Kids club meets luxury spa
Nearest Tube Station – Notting Hill
​Best for Ages – 4 and under
​Family Memberships – from £2400 pa
It’s a bright summers day in early September when we sneak down cobbled Colville mews to wellness mecca Cloud Twelve. A short walk from the Portobello Rd and the fashionable boutiques of Ledbury Rd, Cloud Twelve is an oasis of nurture.
Spread over three floors Cloud Twelve seeks to busy its little members with fun and interactive play whilst offering repletion to overstretched parents in its luxury spa.
Downstairs, you’ll discover the Kids’ Room: a spacious forest-themed play area filled with sensory stations and climbing structures. The area also features organised playrooms for various classes like music, cooking, art, and mindfulness throughout the day.
Beyond the foam filled treetops is a plant based cafe stocked with organic goodies, herbal infusions and a dedicated kid’s Menu. Barista quality coffee and a licensed bar also available.
Head upstairs for an altogether different sensory experience. Zen lighting, decadent aromas and elegant decor mark out the adult quarters of the club. The perfect sanctuary for calm craving parents.
Here you can gaze out onto the mews from the brasserie whilst enjoying a child free lunch or quiet work time. There is also a toxin free salon and wellness spa boasting every kind of thermal and salt room as well as dolomite quartz beds for massages, facials and the like.
Venture to the third floor and you’ll find holistic treatment rooms for the clubs wellness experts offering everything from counselling to colonic irrigation.
Cloud Twelve is a wellness club for the whole family. Membership includes free monthly treatments and one-on-one childcare, so there’s no excuse not to indulge in some self care.
No more leaving the soft play flustered and frazzled. Cloud twelve will pack you off nutritiously fed, relaxed and replenished. Complete with a blow dry and mani pedi.
Cloud Twelve is a club that understands that parents want to spend time with their kids, but also need to take care of themselves. Hallelujah!
Purple Dragon – boutique members club and play paradise
Nearest Tube Station – Sloane Square
Best for Ages – 10 and under
Family Membership – from £5500 pa
Purple Dragon, the original west London family club, can be found in a quiet corner of Chelsea next to the Royal hospital and Chelsea bridge. The site is a spacious 15000 sq foot (complete with Swimming pool) and is set all on one level within the quiet Grosvenor Waterside development.
I arrive at the club for a press viewing. The glass doors open, and I’m greeted by three staff members gathered around an iPad. This is a club that has a reception for the reception.
With clients from A list celebs (Victoria Beckham no less) to the breeders of ‘Made in Chelsea’ not forgetting the odd Emirati prince, it’s no wonder there are doormen.
I can tell I will be well looked after here…
The reception simmers with the sparkle of a five star hotel. I am greeted by an attentive front of house concierge and a wall of clocks displaying the time in all the most important cities – Narnia, Asgard, Wonderland and the like.
With slick tiled floors, fish tank walls and leather sofas this club is an immediate far cry from our usual haunts. We won’t be finding plasters in the ball pit here.
The club boasts a myriad of different play spaces as well as dedicated rooms for music, cooking, arts and movement. The huge lounge space is punctuated with carefully curated corners – a superhero station for young Marvel fans, huge hanging basket seat, a beautiful book corner, ball pit and wooden train set table.
There is also a larger brilliant soft play area for older children and a pro golf simulator. turn the corner and you’ll find dedicated rooms for the clubs bespoke curriculum of Art, performing arts and cookery classes etc.
The most striking of these is the music room. An impressive room with walls lined with electric guitars, a grand piano and every world instrument you can imagine. There is also a fabulous Swimming pool offering lessons and family swim sessions.
Parents will also enjoy a bistro style restaurant and a stylish parents lounge area equipped with lifestyle books, newspapers and fast wifi.
Like Cloud Twelve, Purple Dragon has a team of play buddies on hand, dedicated staff members who are seemingly chomping at the bit to amuse your children and buy you some downtime.
This glossy club reeks of the deluxe.
At over £5000 per year you certainly get what you pay for and there is a quality of service only big money can buy. We visited the club in the school holidays when it was relatively quiet but still lively enough. Most of the children were accompanied by nannies with a couple of coiffed Chelsea mums enjoying child-free coffee in the lounge.
For such an impressive club and austere reputation, I found Purple Dragon to be a very friendly place. There is a palpable dedication to nurturing play and creativity.
Jaego’s House – For fitness, work and play
Nearest Tube Station – Kensal Rise
Best for Ages – 9 and under
Family Membership – From £180 per month
If Cloud Twelve and Purple Dragon were seen as the ‘Annabels’ of family clubs, then these other clubs could be considered as the kids’ version of the Soho Houses.
Jaego’s House opened in May 2022 and occupies the White Building, an impressive listed gated mansion house, canal side in Kensal Rise. The iconic building is steeped in history and was once owned by Richard Branson of Virgin and spreads over 20000 sq ft on three levels.
Much like the other clubs, the main focus of this new club is creating a space that serves both child and parent. Jaego’s House was initially conceived as a workspace option for remote working parents. Acknowledging the tension between need to work and wanting to be present with their kids, Jaego’s seeks to provide a place where both can thrive.
Aimed at kids 0-9yrs there are Jungle Gyms, soft plays, Kids cinema snug and a full timetable of classes such as Tarka, Lego and messy play.
For the parents there are numerous working areas with speedy wifi and great coffee, often within earshot of your child. There is also a kids club manned by childcare professionals with theatrical backgrounds who will entertain your child whilst you work ….or workout. Or hangout with a fellow parent.
Jaego’s House is a great choice for fitness loving parents. It boasts an impressive timetable with classes by all the big names of boutique fitness – Barrecore, Triyoga and Pilates by Absolute fitness. There is also an adult only dedicated gym with treadmills, ellipticals and the like.
As private members clubs go you could say Jaego’s holds the lowest barrier to entry. With memberships from £99 p/month and flexible passes with no long term commitment.
The club is dedicated to a level of affordability, wanting to create a community without pretension. Walking around the club I am struck by how homey and friendly it feels. Unlike the other clubs there seems to be mostly actual parents here. Regular mums, parking up their buggies and getting stuck in.
Jaegos is the brainchild of Charlie Gardiner and a further team of 6 parents of children all under 8 yrs old. With a background in grand scale hospitality (formerly of Incipio), Gardiner has harnessed his hospitality expertise with his experience of fatherhood.
I am shown around the club by Charlie and his wife Lucy who tell me that the club is named after their eldest son Jaego with second born Jesse, the muse for their second family club venture set to open in 2024 in Parson Green. They have named their collective of family clubs ‘The Little Houses’.
Something tells me this dynamic and ambitious couple won’t be stopping there. The couple have a third child yet to have a house bearing its name..!
Jesse’s House (A mediterranean escape coming soon)
Nearest Tube Station – Parsons Green
Best For Ages – TBC
Family Membership – From £280 per month
Imagine sitting on a sun terrace, ordering pizzas and an Aperol Spritz whilst the children splash in the pool. Maybe you’ll wander off for a massage or spot of yoga when hubby returns from his spin class…sounds like the perfect holiday. Or maybe just a regular Summers afternoon at Jesse’s House in Parsons Green.
Due to open in May 2024, Jesse’s House is the second of the Little Houses to open in footsteps of big brother club Jaego’s House. That said there is nothing little about the proposed club which is said to be Mediterranean inspired and to the point – as good as going on holiday.
The Club has been realised from a site of converted empty warehouses on Heathmans Rd, a barely noticeable side road which leads off of the tip of Parsons Green. However residents know this secluded patch all too well. It has long been the home of many a boutique fitness studio and was once the home of much loved (if a little scrappy) Cupcake Family Club, which closed in 2019. The closure of Cupcake left a huge void for Fulham Mums, myself included who loved fitness and the convenience and community of a family club.
Jesse’s house looks set to be the new hottest family destination for this corner of South West London. Set over 220 sq miles, it boasts both an indoor and outdoor pool, sun terrace, Jungle gym, Kids club, Fitness studios, treatment rooms and gym. Members can expect all the usual kids classes and Adult classes, including swimming lessons. There will even be a games room for older children.
With Prices starting as low as £140 per month I recommend registering your interest asap.
Maggie and Rose (Play focused family club)
************** CURRENTLY CLOSED**************
Nearest Tube Station – Earls Court/ High St Kensington
Best For Ages – 6 and under
Family Membership – from £140 – £210 per month dependent on location
Maggie & Rose are a family club chain with three London venues in Chiswick, Kensington and Islington.
Created by a mum of four, Maggie Bolger, these beautifully designed play spaces are like treasure troves. Maggie and Roses’s signature style for natural woods and materials together with muted colour schemes make for relaxing, easy-on-the-senses play days. Forget primary colour overload and overbearing pop music, this is a cleverly curated interactive play area where imaginative play is nurtured above all else.
Each club is equipped with a cinema snug, soft play area, sensory hubs and studios for Art, cooking and music classes.
The Chiswick club is served by a large brasserie style cafe with a soft play conveniently perched in the centre. The Kensington club offers a smaller cafe but still offers hot food.
The Clubs were designed by the architect behind The Soho Houses and ‘The Riding House Cafe’, a Fitzrovian home from home for the creative community.
As stunning as they are, accessibility is unfortunately an issue for these clubs. At least for the Kensington and Chiswick clubs that I visited. Both clubs require you to navigate steep steps to get to the main areas – a red flag for parents with arms full of baby, changing kit and a lagging toddler behind. Frustratingly It also makes the club out of reach for disabled parents.
The lack of secure indoor buggy parking at Kensington is also a drawback with the rise in buggy crime of recent years.
The landscape of family clubs in West London has changed over the last few years with the closures of ‘Get Set Go’ in Putney, ‘Cupcake’ in Parson Green and just recently the sudden closing of the Maggie and Rose Clubs. But with the opening of the Little Houses (Jaego’s and Jesses’s) and the continually thriving older clubs, West London continues to offer a haven for stress free parenthood.
All of the clubs featured also offer party packages and guest passes so you can invite your wider circle to marvel at the facilities. Read this article for more fabulous West London Party Venues for Children.
