Fulham Palace is free daily; its Christmas fair is 5 and 6 December and the North End Road market 12 December. Every Fulham home game, 26 Green Flag parks.
The useful thing to know about things to do in Fulham, and across Hammersmith and Fulham generally, is how much of the good stuff costs nothing. A Tudor palace with a botanic garden, twenty-six parks with Green Flag awards, two free outdoor water features running all summer, and two parkruns. The paid attractions here are theatres and football grounds, and they price per show or per tour rather than per visit.
Everything below was checked against the operator’s own site or the council’s own page on 16 August 2026.
Things to do in Fulham this autumn and winter: to January 2027
Dated events, checked on 20 September 2026 against Fulham Palace’s own event pages and the Premier League fixture list. Everything here is booked and published; nothing is a guess.
At Fulham Palace
| Date | What | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Sun 4 October, 11am to 4pm | Apple day, last entry 3pm | £3 adult, £4 adult and child, £8 family if booked ahead, £1 more on the day |
| Wed 14 October, 12pm to 1pm | Mercantilism, colonialism and the Bishops of London, a talk by community archaeologist Alexis Haslam in Bishop Terrick’s drawing room | Free, donations accepted |
| Sat 24 October, 9.45am to 11.45am | Young Archaeologists’ Club excursion to Billingsgate Bath House, ages 8 to 16, meets at the bath house on Lower Thames Street, not at the palace | £16 |
| Sat 24 October | Little green fingers, children’s gardening: ages 3 to 4 at 10am, 5 to 7 at 11.30am, 8 and over at 2pm | Booked through the events page |
| Wed 28 October, 10.30am to 12.30pm | Crafts and costumes family morning in the great hall with the sewing bees volunteers: dress up and parade through the hall | Free, donations accepted |
| Sat 21 November, 10.30am to 12.15pm | Young Archaeologists’ Club: knucklebone floor, education centre | £16 |
| Sat 21 November, 10am to 12pm and 2pm to 4pm | Paint and sip: autumnal watercolour workshop with local artist Hannah Watters in Bishop Terrick’s drawing room, ages 18 and over. A3 wreath pre-sketched, all materials and a drink included, two identical sittings | £65 |
Added since 20 September: half term and Christmas
Checked on 1 October 2026 against Fulham Palace’s event pages and Hammersmith and Fulham’s events calendar.
| Date | What | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Sat 24 October, 12pm to 6pm | Black History 365 x Routes in the Records at Fulham Palace: a walk and talk tour of the palace at noon, then talks on the Royal African Company archive (1pm) and on reimagining the archive (4pm). Booked through the organisers’ Eventbrite page | Free |
| Thu 29 October, 11am | Half-term theatre: Hansel and Gretel, ages 4 to 7, about 50 minutes in the Chaplain’s garden marquee; Halloween costumes optional | £12 child or adult, £45 family of four, on the door if not sold out |
| Thu 29 October, 2pm | Half-term theatre: The Canterville Ghost, ages 7 and over, same marquee and running time | £12 child or adult, £45 family of four |
| Sat 14 November, 10am to 4pm | Hammersmith Winter Festival on King Street, more than 100 stalls, street entertainment and live music. King Street closes to traffic 4am to 10pm | Free |
| Sun 15 November, 9am to 1pm | Fulham 10K, a road-closed course from Eelbrook Common round Stamford Bridge, Munster Road and Parsons Green | Paid entry |
| Fri 4 December, 5.30pm to 8.30pm | Christmas fair at twilight, Fulham Palace, ages 18 and over, a glass of prosecco included | £10 |
| Sat 5 and Sun 6 December, 11am to 4pm | Christmas fair at Fulham Palace: independent stalls in the palace, marquee and drive, carols in the Tudor courtyard, a Christmas tree trail and crafts for children | £5 adult, £3 child, £15 family, tickets on the door |
| Sat 12 December, 10am to 4pm | North End Road Christmas Market, more than 100 stalls. North End Road closes between Lillie Road and Dawes Road, 4am to 10pm | Free |
The palace’s general Christmas page has been showing last year’s weekdays without a year, so go by the individual event pages above, which carry the 2026 dates. The North End Road market is a week later than last year’s (Saturday 6 December 2025), so an old flyer will send you on the wrong day.
Guided history tours ran through September and early October at £12, or £9 for students, ages 14 and over with accompanied children free, and about half the tour is outdoors on grass, gravel and cobbles.
Two things worth knowing about the palace’s own listings. The Young Archaeologists’ Club runs
monthly at £16 a session and the calendar already reaches into 2027: Mayans on Saturday 16
January, a bridge of boats on Saturday 13 February and grain storage pits on Saturday 13 March.
And the palace’s event URLs do not always match the event: the page filed under
witchcraft-spooky-superstitions is in fact the Billingsgate Bath House excursion, so book from
the title on the page rather than the link you clicked.
The Black History 365 talk series continues past Christmas with Fort Prinzenstein and Elmina Castle: architecture, memory and the transatlantic trade on Thursday 18 February 2027, free with donations accepted.
At Craven Cottage
Fulham’s remaining home league games this year, with kick-off times from the Premier League’s own fixture list:
| Date | Opponent | Kick-off |
|---|---|---|
| Sat 17 October | Hull City | 3pm |
| Sat 7 November | Newcastle United | 3pm |
| Sat 28 November | Bournemouth | 3pm |
| Sat 12 December | Brentford | 3pm |
| Sat 26 December | Brighton and Hove Albion | 3pm |
| Wed 30 December | Arsenal | 7.30pm |
The first two weeks of January add two more at the Cottage: Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday 6 January at 7.30pm, then Aston Villa on Saturday 23 January at 3pm. Putney Bridge is the station for the ground; see the match day note below.
Away in the same stretch: Ipswich on 10 October, Coventry on 24 October, Aston Villa on 31 October, Manchester City on 21 November, Tottenham on 2 December, Everton on 5 December, Leeds on 19 December and Nottingham Forest on 2 January (Premier League).
The Boxing Day fixture is the one to plan around. A 3pm kick-off at Craven Cottage on Saturday 26 December puts a full Premier League crowd through Putney Bridge and Bishop’s Park on a day when the Tube runs a reduced service.
Fulham Palace, and it is free
Fulham Palace on Bishop’s Avenue, SW6 6EA, is the historic home of the Bishops of London, and it is now a free museum. The house and historic rooms open 10.30am to 5pm, with last entry at 4.30pm. You can book a free timeslot online or simply turn up.
The gardens are the part people underrate. The botanic garden, 13 acres of it, is open 7am to 6pm, and the walled garden 10.15am to 4.15pm. There is a café from 9.30am to 5pm, and the shop runs 10.30am to 5pm. All of that was rechecked against the palace’s own visitor page on 4 September 2026, and none of it changes for autumn: the palace publishes one set of hours rather than a summer and winter timetable (Fulham Palace).
Walk out of the garden gate and you are in Bishop’s Park, which runs along the Thames to Putney Bridge. It is Grade II listed on the national register of parks and gardens of special historic interest, one of only two in the borough, and it holds an ornamental lake, a skate bowl, bookable tennis courts, bowls, an outdoor gym and two playgrounds.
Free water: both splash pads are shut until next summer
Checked on 4 September 2026, both council water features are closed for the season. Hammersmith and Fulham states it plainly at the top of each park page: “The Bishops Park splash pad is now closed for the season” (H&F) and “The Ravenscourt Park paddling pool is now closed for the season” (H&F).
Neither page gives a reopening date, and the council does not publish one in advance. In recent years both have come back in late May, so plan on the second half of May 2027 rather than the Easter holidays, and watch the council’s park pages, which are where the notice appears first.
While they are shut, this is what still works in the same two parks and costs nothing. Bishop’s Park keeps its under-8 and over-8 playgrounds, outdoor gym, skate bowl, table tennis, basketball goal, bowls, the ornamental lake, the Moat, Rose and Spanish War Memorial gardens and the Thames Path river walk. Ravenscourt Park keeps four play areas, a sand play area, basketball, bowls, a walled garden, a wildlife garden and a dog exercise area. Both have a cafe and toilets, and both are Green Flag sites that lock at night.
Getting to either is easy without a car. Putney Bridge station on the District line is a 7 minute walk from Bishop’s Park, Putney rail station 15 minutes, and buses 14, 22, 74, 220, 424, 430, DL-4 and DL-5 stop at Putney Bridge. Ravenscourt Park station, also District line, is a 2 minute walk from that park, with buses 110, 190, 267, H91, 94 and 237 nearby.
Twenty-six parks with a Green Flag
The borough holds Green Flag awards for 26 parks and open spaces, which is a lot for one of the smallest boroughs in London. The ones worth a journey rather than a walk:
- Ravenscourt Park, W6 0UA, two minutes from Ravenscourt Park station. Four play areas, a sand play area, the paddling pool, a walled garden, a wildlife garden and bookable tennis, all-weather pitches and netball.
- Hurlingham Park, SW6 3RH, where polo was played from 1874 and still is once a year. Play areas for under and over eights, a multi-use games area, bowls, a rose garden and a chargeable car park, which is unusual here.
- Eelbrook Common, SW6 4PT, three minutes from Fulham Broadway. Its multi-use games area has just reopened after resurfacing. It also has a Tiny Forest.
- Wormwood Scrubs, W12 0DF, the borough’s largest open space and the only place here that feels like countryside. Its western half holds about 18 hectares of tree cover and 22 hectares of meadow, designated Local Nature Reserves, with over 90 bird species and 240 species of wildflower recorded. East Acton station is a ten minute walk.
- Furnivall Gardens on the Hammersmith riverside, and St Peter’s Square Gardens, both small and both worth the detour if you are walking the Thames Path.
Most parks here are locked at night, with the locking times published on the council’s site. Eelbrook Common is the exception and is accessible at all hours.
Two parkruns, both free
Fulham Palace parkrun is 5k in Bishop’s Park, run entirely on paved paths, which makes it one of the more accessible courses in west London. Wormwood Scrubs parkrun is 5k on grass and woodland tracks, and gets muddy after rain. Both are free, both are Saturday mornings, and you register once with parkrun and use the same barcode anywhere in the world.
Theatre, music and the arts
- Bush Theatre, Shepherd’s Bush. A new-writing theatre with a deliberately cheap ticket policy: Band C seats are £15 and preview performances start at £10. Two of its three memberships are free, one for under-30s and one for anyone who lives or works locally, and a season ticket takes 20% off two shows, 30% off three and 40% off four.
- Lyric Hammersmith, on Lyric Square by the Broadway. A 19th-century auditorium rebuilt inside a modern building, with a main house and a studio, both step-free.
- Riverside Studios, on the Hammersmith riverside. A mainstage season, cinema and television studios in one building, with food and drink on the river. It sells a Riverside Pass at £60 a year for regulars.
- Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith. The borough’s big music venue, and the room most people mean when they say they are seeing a band in west London.
Check each venue’s own listings before travelling; all of them price by show, and a theatre being open does not mean there is something on that night.
Two Premier League grounds in one borough
Fulham FC play at Craven Cottage, on the river next to Bishop’s Park, and it is the prettiest ground in the league by common consent. Chelsea play at Stamford Bridge, which despite the name is in SW6 and firmly in this borough, not in Kensington and Chelsea.
Both run stadium tours and museums. Both sell them through their own sites and change the price and the schedule regularly, so book direct rather than believing a third-party listing. On match days, Fulham Broadway station operates crowd control for Stamford Bridge and Putney Bridge for Craven Cottage, and both are exit-only for a period after the final whistle.
Shopping, markets and the riverside
Westfield London at White City is the borough’s shopping destination, served by Shepherd’s Bush on the Central line, Wood Lane on the Circle and Hammersmith & City, White City on the Central and Shepherd’s Bush Overground, which is four stations for one shopping centre.
North End Road market in Fulham is the older, cheaper and more interesting one. The council’s own account is that it has run six days a week since the 1880s, Monday to Saturday, 8am to 6pm, selling fruit, vegetables and groceries at prices that have nothing to do with the postcode it sits in.
The Thames Path runs the whole southern edge of the borough, from Wandsworth Bridge past Craven Cottage and Bishop’s Park to Putney Bridge, then on the north bank from Hammersmith Bridge west past Furnivall Gardens. Since Hammersmith Bridge is open to walkers, you can still make a loop of it, which is the single best free afternoon in the borough.
Getting there
Everything on this page is inside Zone 2, so any journey from central London costs £3.60 at peak and £3.10 off-peak, whichever station you use. See our tube times and fares page for journey times, and the roadworks page if you are driving, because Wandsworth Bridge closes completely from 21 September.
The all-day Weekend Hopper promotion has now finished. What remains is the standard Hopper fare, which is still the cheapest way to string several parks together: touch in at adult pay as you go and you get unlimited bus and tram journeys within one hour for a single £1.75, so long as you use the same card or device each time (TfL, checked 4 September 2026). An hour is enough to get from Bishop’s Park to Ravenscourt Park and off again.
Frequently asked questions
What is on in Fulham at Christmas 2026?
Fulham Palace holds an adults-only Christmas fair at twilight on Friday 4 December (5.30pm to 8.30pm, £10) and its family Christmas fair on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 December (11am to 4pm, £5 adult, £3 child, £15 family). The council’s free North End Road Christmas Market is on Saturday 12 December, 10am to 4pm, and the Hammersmith Winter Festival on King Street is on Saturday 14 November. Fulham are at home to Brighton on Boxing Day at 3pm.
What is there to do in Fulham at October half term?
Fulham Palace puts on two 50-minute plays in its garden marquee on Thursday 29 October: Hansel and Gretel at 11am for ages 4 to 7 and The Canterville Ghost at 2pm for ages 7 and over, £12 a ticket or £45 for a family of four. The palace’s crafts and costumes family morning on Wednesday 28 October is free.
What is on in Fulham this autumn?
At Fulham Palace: Apple day on Sunday 4 October (£3 adult, £8 family if booked ahead), a free Black History 365 talk on mercantilism and the Bishops of London on Wednesday 14 October, children’s gardening and a Young Archaeologists’ excursion on Saturday 24 October, a free crafts and costumes family morning on Wednesday 28 October, and two £65 watercolour workshops on Saturday 21 November. At Craven Cottage, Fulham are at home to Hull City on 17 October, Newcastle on 7 November, Bournemouth on 28 November, Brentford on 12 December, Brighton on Boxing Day and Arsenal on 30 December.
When is Fulham’s next home game at Craven Cottage?
The home league fixtures for the rest of 2026 are Hull City on Saturday 17 October (3pm), Newcastle United on Saturday 7 November (3pm), Bournemouth on Saturday 28 November (3pm), Brentford on Saturday 12 December (3pm), Brighton and Hove Albion on Boxing Day, Saturday 26 December (3pm), and Arsenal on Wednesday 30 December (7.30pm). Tottenham follow on Wednesday 6 January and Aston Villa on Saturday 23 January.
Is Fulham Palace free to enter?
Yes. The house, historic rooms and museum are free, as are the botanic garden and walled garden. You can book a free timeslot online or turn up without one. The museum and historic rooms run 10.30am to 5pm with last entry at 4.30pm, and the botanic garden is open from 7am.
Are the Fulham splash pads open?
No. Checked on 4 September 2026, Hammersmith and Fulham lists both the Bishop’s Park splash pad and the Ravenscourt Park paddling pool as closed for the season. Neither park page gives a reopening date; in recent years they have come back in late May.
What is there to do in Fulham for free?
Fulham Palace and its 13 acres of botanic garden, Bishop’s Park, Ravenscourt Park, 26 Green Flag parks, two Saturday parkruns and the Thames Path along the whole southern edge of the borough.
How many parks are there in Hammersmith and Fulham?
The council lists 26 parks and open spaces holding Green Flag awards, from Wormwood Scrubs down to small garden squares like Gwendwr Gardens and St Peter’s Square Gardens.
Can you visit Stamford Bridge and Craven Cottage?
Both grounds run stadium tours and museums, and both are inside this borough despite Stamford Bridge carrying Chelsea’s name. Prices and schedules change, so book through each club’s own site.
What is the cheapest theatre in the borough?
Bush Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush. Band C seats are £15, preview performances start at £10, and membership is free if you are under 30 or live or work locally.
Sources
- Fulham Palace visitor information for the free admission and the opening hours of the museum, botanic garden, walled garden, cafe and shop. Rechecked 4 September 2026.
- H&F Bishops Park page for the splash pad being closed for the season, the Grade II listing, the facilities list and the transport links. Rechecked 4 September 2026.
- H&F Ravenscourt Park page for the paddling pool being closed for the season, the facilities list and the transport links. Rechecked 4 September 2026.
- H&F parks and open spaces for the list of 26 Green Flag sites.
- Fulham Palace parkrun and Wormwood Scrubs parkrun for the two courses.
- Bush Theatre ways to save for the £15 and £10 tickets, the free memberships and the season ticket discounts.
- H&F Wormwood Scrubs page for the nature reserve areas and the bird and wildflower counts.
- H&F North End Road Market for the market’s days, hours and history.
- TfL bus and tram fares for the £1.75 Hopper fare and its one-hour rule. Rechecked 4 September 2026.
- Fulham Palace events, with the Apple day, history tour, Mercantilism, colonialism and the Bishops of London, crafts and costumes family morning and paint and sip pages, for the autumn and winter dates, times and prices. Checked 20 September 2026 against the palace’s own event sitemap.
- Fulham Palace: Christmas fair, Christmas fair at twilight, Hansel and Gretel, The Canterville Ghost and Black History 365 x Routes in the Records, and H&F’s Hammersmith Winter Festival, North End Road Christmas Market and Fulham 10K listings. Checked 1 October 2026.
- Premier League: Fulham fixtures for the Craven Cottage dates and kick-off times. Checked 20 September 2026.
Opening hours and prices change. The seasonal water features are closed until next summer. The event and fixture lists above were rechecked against Fulham Palace and the Premier League fixture list on 20 September 2026; the park, transport and venue detail was checked on 11 September 2026. Check the operator before you set out.
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