This Christmas, Cheapside Business Alliance is lighting up with a series of festive lights, events, tours and workshops.
Whether you live, work, or are visiting the area, you can enjoy beautifully decorated streets, engaging activities including music, crafts, and seasonal celebrations, and a truly festive atmosphere throughout the area.
Check out the exciting programme of activations below.
Festive Light Installations
Discover our incredible lit-up installations across Cheapside, the perfect backdrops to your lunchbreak or a festive photo opportunity, against the area’s most iconic backdrops.
Find our installations at:
- Walk-through Twinkly Lantern – New Change Garden
- Walk-through Christmas Tree – One New Change (Cheapside Entrance)
- Hanging Festive Lights – Bow Lane & Watling Street
- Christmas Tree – Bow Churchyard
- Festive Trees – Threadneedle Street (right next to The Royal Exchange – discover their incredible Fortnum & Mason Christmas Tree and sparkling columns around the front too)
A Christmas Carol – Festive Walking Tours
As part of our new Christmas in Cheapside programme, we’re excited to share these free lunchtime and after-work walking tours, exploring the real places that inspired one of the most iconic Christmas stories ever told.
Led by expert guide Sarah Williams-Robbins, better known as ‘Mrs Londoner’, you’ll discover the locations and themes behind Dickens’s 1843 classic ‘A Christmas Carol‘, from Cornhill and its echoes of Christmases past to a charming marketplace once filled with Victorian shoppers.
Weekday Tours:
- Wednesday 3rd December | 12:30pm – 1:30pm
- Tuesday 9th December | 5:30pm – 6:30pm
Weekend Tours:
- Saturday 6th December | 10:00am – 11:30am
Festive Wreath Making Workshop
8th December| 12:30 – 1:30pm | Market Place St Paul’s
Join us for one of our festive Cheapside Craft Club workshops and make your own classic Christmas decoration!
You’ll be introduced to the finest seasonal foliage and you’ll have a variety of traditional foliage to choose from, including pine cones and orange slices) to adorn your living moss base.
12 Days of Cheapside
1st-12th December | Digital Advent Calendar
The 12 Days of Cheapside Advent Calendar is back, with 25 incredible gifts up for grabs!
From pampering to partying, and meals out to working out, all you’ve got to do is visit Cheapside Business Alliance’s website daily from 1st-12th December to discover what prizes are waiting behind the calendar door.
Christmas in Cheapside: Lunchtime Pop-Ups
10th & 11th December | 12:00pm – 2:00pm | Bow Churchyard
Join us in celebrating Christmas in Cheapside with not one but two FREE festive lunchtime events, each with a charming Dickensian twist.
Enjoy macramé workshops, hot chocolate and mulled wine, and live performances from the Victorian Carol Singers – the perfect way to add a little Christmas magic to your workday.
Festive Macrame Decorations Workshop
10th & 11th December| 12:00 – 2:00pm (30 Minutes Each) | Bow Churchyard
Join us for one of our festive Cheapside Craft Club workshops, where you’ll use sustainable materials to create your own Christmas decorations!
In this quick festive workshop, you’ll learn simple macramé techniques using sustainable materials to craft one beautiful decoration to take home – perfect for your tree or as a thoughtful seasonal gift.
Stay in touch
Find out what we’ve got planned in the New Year by signing up to our monthly Newsletter.