Not content with being just the capital city, London has been crowned the UK’s Capital of Hobbies as well as the best city for community, creative and intellectual hobbies – although Glasgow took the top spot for physical hobbies!

The research comes from Age Co who surveyed 800 UK residents aged 55+ to determine which hobbies were the most popular among that age group, before ranking popular cities across the UK based on the available facilities for those activities, in order to determine the UK Capital of Hobbies.

Each hobby was categorised into one of four groupings; physical hobbies such as walking, gardening and yoga, community based pursuits like book clubs or volunteering, cerebral hobbies like sudoku or creative activities such as painting.

Age Co was then able to score each of the cities against different criteria for each category, allowing for a potential five favoured locations including the overall top spot and the capital for each grouping.

Interestingly the research also revealed that the overwhelming majority of us didn’t start a new hobby during lockdown, with three quarters of respondents saying they had taken up their chosen hobbies before the pandemic hit.

It also seems we are more likely to have multiple hobbies, with only 30% of those surveyed saying they only regularly participate in one hobby. Two seems to be the magic number, with around two fifths of the responses, however some reported taking part in as many as 5 hobbies a week.

Director of Marketing, Brand & Insight at Age Co, Carolyn Hector, adds: “Hobbies can be an important aspect in our day to day lives, especially as we enter later life and start to have a lot more free time to pursue our interests. Whether it’s as simple as unwinding with a good book or walking with friends or helping out in the local community.

“We need make time to do something we like simply because we enjoy it. And that’s what we found when we asked people the main reason they participate in their chosen hobby, the three main reasons were because they simply enjoyed it, staying active and improving their mental health.”

Creative Hobbies

Cooking and baking proved the most popular of creative hobbies, with just over two fifths of respondents saying they regularly participate in the activity. The second two most popular creative hobbies were knitting and photography with 17% and 15% respectively.

When scoring cities for creative hobbies Age Co looked at the number of craft stores, the number of knitting supply stores and the number of posts on Instagram with the hashtag [location] photography.

London scored the highest across all three criteria, securing their position as the Capital of creative hobbies, although Birmingham was not far behind, missing out on the top spot by as little as five points. The third most creative hobby friendly city was Manchester.

Interestingly most respondents said they spend on average £1-10 a week on their creative hobby although some admitted to spending as much as £50 and above.

Intellectual Hobbies

Reading is apparently the most popular cognitive hobby by far with just under two thirds of people saying they regularly read, although crossword puzzles weren’t too far behind with an impressive 51% of respondents identifying it as a regular hobby.

Intellectual hobbies also proved to be the most popular type of hobby among those aged 55+, with just over two fifths saying they prefer mentally challenging hobbies compared to 34% for active hobbies, 18% for creative and just 5% preferring community-based hobbies.

Cities were scored against how many libraries they had available as well as the Google search volume from the locations for both crossword puzzles and Soduko. While London proved once again to be the overall winner, Belfast actually has more libraries than the capital which given their size difference is an impressive feat in itself.

Active Hobbies

A massive 70% of respondents said they regularly go walking, making it by far the most popular active hobby, with the second most popular option being gardening with just under 40%. Swimming also seemed to be a popular choice with two fifths of those surveyed reporting they regularly go for a quick dip – and despite the popular stereotype only 7% admit to regularly golfing.

The scoring criteria for physical hobbies included the search volume by location for the phrase ‘walks near me’, the number of garden centres and the number of swimming pools.

Glasgow was able to nab the top spot from London due to having a higher number of both swimming pools and garden centres, making it the Capital of Physical Hobbies. London did manage to take joint second place, tied with Manchester.

Community Based Hobbies

Despite being the least popular type of hobby, 20% of respondents did report that they regularly travel abroad to socialise with others. And 13% say they regularly volunteer in their local community, just slightly ahead of the one in ten dabbing regularly in their local bingo hall. Age Co scored cities against the search volume for local volunteering opportunities and the number of bingo halls. Unsurprisingly London came out on top once again, closely followed by Birmingham and Glasgow.