London does not really have Christmas markets. It has four different things that all get sold under that name, and they are so unalike that turning up at the wrong one is how people end up spending sixty pounds on mulled wine and a fairground ride when they came to buy presents.
Sorting them out is the whole job, and it is why a list of Christmas markets in London is less useful than knowing which of the four you are being sold.
Which Christmas markets in London have confirmed 2026 dates
Almost every guide to Christmas markets in London is republished each autumn with last
year’s dates still in it. At the time of writing, the top results for this search include one
page headed as a 2024 guide and two more carrying 2025 dates.
So before the opinions, here is the status as rechecked on 28 September 2026.
Hyde Park Winter Wonderland: confirmed. 19 November 2026 to 3 January 2027,
daily except Christmas Day.
Christmas at Kew: confirmed. Selected dates from 13 November 2026 to 3 January
2027, 4.20pm to 10pm, tickets from £25.50.
Southbank Centre Winter Market: not yet published. Nothing on the Southbank
Centre’s own What’s On listing for winter 2026 at the time of checking.
Christmas by the River: still not published on 3 October 2026. London Bridge City’s events listing now offers only three months, September, October and November, with no December tab at all, and carries a single entry, a padel festival at Hay’s Galleria on 18 October, and last year’s Christmas by the River page returns an error.
Leicester Square: its Christmas page still returns an error. Checked again on 28 September 2026 and the page still returns an error, so there is no published 2026 date for it from the square’s own site.
This is normal and it is not a sign they are not happening. The free chalet
markets are run by estates and cultural venues that announce late, usually in October, while the
big ticketed events go on sale early because they need the revenue. If a guide is giving you
confident dates for the Southbank market today, it is giving you last year’s.
The four things called a Christmas market
A funfair with stalls in it. Hyde Park Winter Wonderland is the obvious one. There is a market inside it and it is the smallest part of the site.
An actual chalet market. Wooden huts, a riverside walk, bratwurst and gluhwein, free to wander through. The Southbank Centre’s is the best known.
A ticketed light trail. Christmas at Kew is the big one, and it is not a market at all. It is an after dark walk through illuminated gardens, it is ticketed, and people book it expecting to shop.
An ordinary London market in December. Nobody advertises these as Christmas markets, which is exactly why they are the best of the four.
The funfair
Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
- Address
- Hyde Park, W2 2UH
- Nearest
- Hyde Park Corner, Green Park or Marble Arch
- Hours
- 19 November 2026 to 3 January 2027, daily except Christmas Day
- Price
- From £1 off peak to £9.50, and free if you spend £25
- Standing
- The largest Christmas event in London by a wide margin
How to get in
Entry is ticketed and timed, which surprises people who assume a park event is free. Off peak sessions on Mondays to Thursdays in November start at £1 and peak entry runs to £9.50, with booking ahead up to 25 per cent cheaper than paying at the gate. The rule worth knowing: spend £25 on food, drink or attractions in a single online booking and your entry is free.
The entry fee is the cheapest thing about it. That is not a complaint, it is how the site is designed: the ticket gets you through the gate and everything inside is priced separately. A couple who go on two rides and eat will not see much change from sixty pounds, and the entry was nine of it.
Go on a weekday in November if you go at all. The gap between a £1 Tuesday in November and a peak Saturday in December is the difference between a pleasant evening and a crowd you cannot move through.
The real chalet markets, which are the Christmas markets London actually has
These are the ones most people actually mean, and the good news is that walking through them costs nothing.
Southbank Centre Winter Market
- Address
- Riverside walk beside the Royal Festival Hall, South Bank
- Nearest
- Waterloo or Embankment
- Price
- Free to enter
- Standing
- Wooden chalets strung along the Thames path, returning each winter
How to get in
Free, open air, no ticket and no booking, which makes it the one to do on the way to something else rather than as the evening itself. It sits on the busiest pedestrian route in central London, so it is at its best on a weekday before six and close to unusable on a December Saturday.
Christmas by the River
- Address
- London Bridge City, between London Bridge and Tower Bridge
- Nearest
- London Bridge
- Price
- Free to enter
- Standing
- The market people search for as the London Bridge Christmas market
How to get in
Rechecked on 3 October 2026 and still not announced: London Bridge City’s listing now runs only to November and shows one event in total, and its old Christmas by the River page returns an error. Treat a 2026 return as likely rather than confirmed, and check before you travel. When it runs it is the quieter alternative to the Southbank, and the better one for actually looking at what is on the stalls. The view across the water to the Tower of London is the reason to choose it over the others. Combine it with Borough Market, which is a ten minute walk west.
Leicester Square runs a small market of the same kind each winter, free to walk through, and it is the most central and the least interesting of the three.
Covent Garden is the outlier and the one worth the detour. There are no chalets: what it does instead is dress the Apple Market and the piazza, hang the glass roof with bells and baubles the size of a person, and carry on being the market it is the rest of the year. It costs nothing to walk through, the stalls are better than anything in a hut, and it is four minutes from Leicester Square if you want to compare the two in one evening.
What is not a market
Christmas at Kew is a light trail. A ticketed, timed, after dark walk through the gardens, and a genuinely good one. It is not shopping and there is no market in any meaningful sense. Book it because you want to walk through lit gardens in the cold, not because you want a wreath.
The same applies to most of the illuminated trails that appear around London each December. They are ticketed evening walks, they sell out, and they are sold with the word Christmas doing a lot of work.
Christmas at Kew, in detail, because it is the one with rules
It is the most expensive thing in this guide and the one most often booked by mistake, so it is
worth setting out properly.
13 November 2026 to 3 January 2027, on selected dates, running 4.20pm to 10pm.
Last entry is between 7pm and 8pm depending on which of the three gates you use, Victoria, Brentford or Elizabeth. On 24 December the event closes at 9pm
and last entry is up to an hour earlier.
Tickets from £25.50, with a Kew Members’ discount and family and
child tickets available. There is limited availability of anytime entry tickets, which free you
from the timed slot and give trail access from 4.20pm to 7.40pm.
New for 2026: adult only evenings on 3 and 9 December. If the appeal of a
light trail is diminished for you by queueing behind pushchairs, those are the two dates to
want.
And the trap, which Kew states plainly and which will catch people. Kew’s
£1 tickets for Universal Credit and Pension Credit holders apply to standard daytime
entry to the Gardens and not to Christmas at Kew. The concession that makes Kew one of the
most accessible attractions in London does not extend to its Christmas event.
The best Christmas markets London has, and the answer nobody gives you
London’s ordinary markets in December are better than anything built for the season, because they are markets rather than an event with a market theme.
Columbia Road Flower Market
- Address
- Columbia Road, Bethnal Green, E2
- Nearest
- Hoxton or Bethnal Green
- Hours
- Sundays, from 8am until about 3pm
- Price
- Free
- Standing
- A working flower market since 1869, and the December Christmas tree market
How to get in
The single best Christmas shopping morning in London and it is free. Through December the street sells Christmas trees, wreaths and greenery. Go at eight for the pick. It is one street, it gets genuinely packed, and it is worth it.
Borough Market
- Address
- 8 Southwark Street, SE1 1TL
- Nearest
- London Bridge
- Price
- Free to enter
- Standing
- A food market on the site since the twelfth century in some form
How to get in
December is when Borough earns its reputation: this is where Londoners buy the cheese, the ham and the bird rather than where tourists buy a sandwich. Go early on a weekday for the food shopping and avoid the middle of a Saturday entirely. It is a ten minute walk from Christmas by the River, which is the best pairing on this page.
Greenwich Market is the third of these and the most underrated: covered, so the weather does not decide the afternoon, and genuinely good for presents rather than for food.
The London Christmas lights, which are the free version of all this
The switch-ons are the thing most people actually mean when they say they want to see London at Christmas, and unlike everything above they cost nothing and need no ticket.
Oxford Street, Regent Street, Bond Street, Carnaby and Covent Garden are the five displays worth walking, and they are close enough together to do in one evening on foot. Regent Street is the one to lead with: it is the largest, the street is wide enough to see it properly, and it runs the length of the walk down to Piccadilly.
The dates are announced through the autumn rather than fixed. The 2026 dates announced so far, and the ones still to come, are on our Christmas lights page. The switch-ons usually land in the first half of November and the displays run to early January, but each street announces its own date and they move year to year. Check before you plan an evening around a switch-on event, which draws a crowd that makes the street itself hard to walk.
Go on a weekday after the shops shut. The lights are on and the pavements are not full of shopping bags, which is the difference between a walk and a queue.
For the wider picture, things to do in London at Christmas covers the whole month: what is open on the 25th, what to book in September, and why the week after Boxing Day is the best of it.
Christmas Day itself
London closes, and the transport closes with it. There is no Tube, no bus, no DLR, no Overground and no Tramlink on Christmas Day. Taxis and private hire run, as do Santander Cycles, and that is essentially the list.
The markets are shut, Winter Wonderland closes for the day, and the museums are closed from 24 to 26 December. What is open is the outdoors: the parks, the river walks, and, remarkably, the swimming. Parliament Hill Lido and the Highgate and Kenwood ponds on Hampstead Heath open every day of the year, Christmas Day included.
How to do it without wasting the evening
Decide whether you are shopping or drinking. They are different trips and the venues are not interchangeable. The chalet markets are drinking with some shopping attached. Columbia Road and Greenwich are shopping. Winter Wonderland is neither, it is a funfair.
Weekday, and before six. Every free market on this page is pleasant on a Tuesday afternoon and close to unbearable on a December Saturday. The stalls are the same. The difference is entirely whether you can get near them.
Do not build an evening around a free market. They are twenty minutes of walking through, not a destination. Pair one with dinner or with a pub and the evening works. Go for the market alone and you will be back on the tube by seven wondering what that was.
Book the ticketed things early and the free things not at all. Winter Wonderland and the light trails sell out their good slots by late November. Nothing else here takes a booking.
Only Winter Wonderland’s and Christmas at Kew’s dates were confirmed when this was rechecked on 28 September 2026. The chalet markets and the other light trails announce their dates through the autumn and they move by a week or two each year. Every one of them should be checked before you travel, and the free ones will not tell you if they are shut.
New Year’s Eve in London is the other date in the season that needs booking rather than turning up.
Where to go next
Christmas at Kew is the evening light trail to pair with the markets.
The one number nobody will give you is Christmas Day lunch. Six of the rooms that rank first for it advertise the meal and none publishes a price, including Hawksmoor, which prints its ordinary set lunch to the penny all year.
Hyde Park Winter Wonderland runs 19 November to 3 January and is the big ticketed one, though it publishes four separate ways to get in for nothing. Its Christmas markets sit behind the Green Gate in the west, from Knightsbridge or High Street Kensington.
Free things to do in London covers the rest of what costs nothing, and London this weekend covers how to build a Saturday or a Sunday around a market.
The best restaurants and the pubs cover what to pair a market with, which is the difference between an evening and twenty minutes in the cold.
Questions we get asked
Are there Christmas markets in London?
Yes, but fewer genuine ones than the listings suggest. The real chalet markets are the Southbank Centre Winter Market, Christmas by the River at London Bridge City and a small one at Leicester Square, all free to walk through. Hyde Park Winter Wonderland is a ticketed funfair with a market inside it, and Christmas at Kew is a ticketed light trail rather than a market at all.
Is Winter Wonderland free?
No. Entry is ticketed and timed, running from £1 for off peak sessions on Mondays to Thursdays in November up to £9.50 at peak, and booking ahead is up to 25 per cent cheaper than the gate price. There are four ways round it, and the simplest is to spend £25 on food, drink or attractions in a single online booking, which makes the entry free. In 2026 it runs from 19 November to 3 January, daily except Christmas Day.
Where is Hyde Park Winter Wonderland?
In Hyde Park, W2 2UH, on the eastern side nearest Hyde Park Corner. Green Park and Marble Arch are the other two useful stations and all three are a short walk to a gate. It is a large site inside a much larger park, so follow the signs from whichever corner you arrive at rather than aiming for the middle of the park.
Do you need tickets for Winter Wonderland?
Yes. Entry is ticketed and timed, which surprises people who assume an event in a public park is free to wander into. Off peak sessions on Mondays to Thursdays in November start at £1 and peak entry runs to £9.50, and booking ahead is up to 25 per cent cheaper than the gate. Spend £25 on food, drink or attractions in a single online booking and the entry is free.
Which London Christmas market is free?
The Southbank Centre Winter Market, Christmas by the River at London Bridge City and the Leicester Square market are all free to walk through with no ticket and no booking. So are the ordinary markets that are better in December anyway: Columbia Road on a Sunday morning, Borough Market and Greenwich Market.
What is the best Christmas market in London?
For actual Christmas shopping, Columbia Road Flower Market on a Sunday morning in December, which sells trees, wreaths and greenery and discounts hard in the last hour. For the chalet market experience, Christmas by the River at London Bridge City, because it is quieter than the Southbank and the view across to the Tower of London is better.
When do the Christmas lights go on in London?
Each street announces its own switch-on through the autumn rather than working to a fixed date, and they move year to year. In practice they land in the first half of November and run to early January. Oxford Street, Regent Street, Bond Street, Carnaby and Covent Garden are the five displays worth walking, and the switch-on events themselves draw a crowd that makes the street hard to walk, so a quiet weekday evening afterwards is the better visit.
Where are the best Christmas lights in London?
Regent Street, if you are only walking one. It is the largest display, the street is wide enough to see it properly, and it carries you down towards Piccadilly. Oxford Street, Bond Street, Carnaby and Covent Garden are the other four, and all five are close enough to do in a single evening on foot. They are free and need no ticket.
When do London Christmas markets start?
Mid to late November for most of them, running to just after New Year. Hyde Park Winter Wonderland is confirmed for 19 November 2026 to 3 January 2027. The free chalet markets at the Southbank Centre and London Bridge City announce their dates through the autumn and shift by a week or two each year, so check rather than trusting last year's listing.
What is open on Christmas Day in London?
Very little, and getting to it is the harder problem: there is no Tube, no bus, no DLR, no Overground and no Tramlink on Christmas Day. Taxis, private hire and Santander Cycles run. The markets are shut, Winter Wonderland closes for the day, and the museums are closed from 24 to 26 December. The parks are open, and so is the swimming on Hampstead Heath.
What can you do in London on Christmas Day?
Walk, and swim. Parliament Hill Lido and the Highgate Men's and Kenwood Ladies' ponds on Hampstead Heath are open every day of the year including Christmas Day, which is a genuine London tradition rather than a novelty. The parks and river walks are open. Plan the journey first, because public transport does not run at all and a taxi is the only realistic way across town.
Is Christmas at Kew a market?
No. It is a ticketed, timed, after dark walk through illuminated gardens, and a good one, but there is no market in any meaningful sense. People book it expecting to shop and are disappointed. Book it because you want to walk through lit gardens in the cold.
Where are the best Christmas markets in London?
It depends which of four different things you mean, because all four are sold as Christmas markets. For actual wooden chalets you can walk through for nothing, the Southbank Centre Winter Market and Christmas by the River at London Bridge City are the two to know, with Christmas by the River the quieter and better one for looking at stalls. For a funfair with a market inside it, Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, confirmed for 19 November 2026 to 3 January 2027. For a light trail, Christmas at Kew, 13 November 2026 to 3 January 2027.
What is the biggest Christmas market in London?
Hyde Park Winter Wonderland by a wide margin, though calling it a market oversells that part of it: the market is the smallest element of a site that is mostly a funfair, bars and ticketed attractions. It runs 19 November 2026 to 3 January 2027, daily except Christmas Day. Entry is timed and ticketed, from 1 pound off peak to 9.50 at peak, and entry is free if you spend 25 pounds in a single online booking.
Are London Christmas markets free?
The chalet markets are. The Southbank Centre Winter Market, Christmas by the River and the small Leicester Square market are all free to walk through with no ticket and no booking. What is not free is Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, which is timed and ticketed even though it sits in a public park, and Christmas at Kew, which is a ticketed light trail from 25.50 pounds. Note that Kew’s 1 pound Universal Credit and Pension Credit tickets do not apply to Christmas at Kew.
When do London Christmas markets open in 2026?
Rechecked on 28 September 2026, two have published dates and two have not. Hyde Park Winter Wonderland is confirmed for 19 November 2026 to 3 January 2027 and Christmas at Kew for 13 November 2026 to 3 January 2027. The Southbank Centre Winter Market and Christmas by the River had not yet listed anything for winter 2026 on their own sites, which is normal: the free chalet markets announce in October while the ticketed events go on sale early. Any guide quoting confident Southbank dates today is quoting last year’s.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 64 in the guide.
Last checked 3 October 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
