Highgate's lights go on 4.30pm Thursday 26 November in Pond Square, with Dame Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar. Free; Santa 3pm, brass band 4pm, carols 9 Dec.

Highgate’s Christmas lights go on at 4.30pm on Thursday 26 November 2026, in Pond Square, with Dame Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar. The Highgate Society posted the date on 29 October. The evening is free, and the broadcaster Alex Zane hosts again, as he did last year (Highgate Society).

Overview

  • Is it on this year? Yes: Thursday 26 November 2026, confirmed by the Highgate Society.
  • Where: Pond Square, N6. This is a change: the last two switch-ons were on South Grove. The lights are switched on from the Superette terrace.
  • Times: Santa’s grotto at The Crown 3pm to 4pm, the Highgate Brass Ensemble in Pond Square 4pm to 4.30pm, switch-on 4.30pm to 5pm.
  • Who: Dame Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar, hosted by Alex Zane.
  • Price: free. The volunteers ask for donations towards the lights.
  • Carols in Pond Square: Wednesday 9 December 2026 at 6.30pm.

Updated 11 November: the 2026 date, place, guests and running order are now published, and the carols date is out too.

The 2026 evening

The Highgate Society’s post sets out the afternoon in three parts (Highgate Society):

  • 3pm to 4pm: Santa’s Grotto at The Crown, for children under 10 with their parents or carers.
  • 4pm to 4.30pm: the Highgate Brass Ensemble in Pond Square, playing festive music, “with surprise treats and special guests”.
  • 4.30pm to 5pm: the lights switch-on, from the Superette terrace.

This year’s sponsors, as the Society lists them, are Channing and Highgate schools, the Highgate Society, Riverstone and Streathers Daynes Smith, with the Pond Square Harley Atkinson Memorial Lights given in conjunction with Prickett & Ellis, Taylor Gibbs and Winkworth. The volunteers who run it have a JustGiving page for donations towards installing the lights.

Last year the Society hoped that donations would let it “light Pond Square too”. This year’s post puts the whole evening in Pond Square and names memorial lights for it, which reads as that hope met, though the post does not say so in as many words.

What happened in 2025

The switch-on is run by a volunteer group, Highgate Festive Events, and publicised by the Highgate Society. Its 2025 post, published on 29 October, set out the evening (Highgate Society):

  • Wednesday 19 November, 4pm to 5pm, on South Grove N6.
  • Festive music from the Highgate Brass Ensemble, with Rupert Grint and Alex Zane as the special guests.
  • Father Christmas from 3pm to 4pm at the Riverstone Hub, for younger children, before the lights went on.
  • Drinks for adults after the switch-on. Riverstone ran an “Aperitivo Hour” from 5.30pm to 6.30pm, and asked people to register in advance through its own site.

The lights are paid for by sponsors and donations. The 2025 sponsors named by the Society were Channing and Highgate schools, Streathers, Riverstone, Urban Baristas and Valouran, with a long list of village businesses behind them and a public JustGiving appeal. The Society said that with enough donations it hoped “to be able to light Pond Square too”, so what is lit depends partly on what is raised.

And in 2024

The Society’s 2024 post, published on 24 October, gave the switch-on as Thursday 21 November at 4.30pm in South Grove, sponsored by Riverstone of 1 Hampstead Lane, and said the lights would stay up “through the Christmas and New Year period” (Highgate Society).

Both earlier evenings fell in the third week of November. This year’s is a week later, on the fourth Thursday, but keeps the same late-afternoon slot as it gets dark.

Carols in Pond Square

The Highgate Society’s own Christmas event is its carol singing in Pond Square, which it calls “a gift from the Highgate Society to the local community”. The 2026 carols are on Wednesday 9 December at 6.30pm, posted by the Society on 6 November. Music comes from the brass ensembles and choirs of Channing and Highgate schools, with the HLSI’s Musical Theatre Choir, and the producer and director Dan Hall is master of ceremonies again. Refreshments are at the Society’s rooms at 10A South Grove before, during and after, and the collection goes to the Whittington Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, through Whittington Health Charity (Highgate Society).

In 2025 it was on Wednesday 10 December at 6.30pm, led by the Highgate School Brass Ensemble, with mulled wine and food afterwards at the Society’s rooms at 10A South Grove. Collections, “cash preferred”, went to the Alexandra Wylie Tower Foundation’s food and bike bank and to The Toy Project in Archway (Highgate Society).

The Society’s earlier reports show the scale. In 2023 more than 25 volunteers ran it, the rain cleared in time, and the collection raised over £2,200 for North London Hospice and Jacksons Lane’s Christmas Day lunch (Highgate Society). In 2022 it raised over £1,300 for the Harington Scheme (Highgate Society).

Getting there

Pond Square is on the bus. Transport for London’s stop data puts the 143, 210, 263, 310 and N263 at the South Grove stops, and the 214 at the Pond Square stop itself, the closest for both the switch-on and the carols (TfL).

No road closure has been published for the 2026 switch-on, and none was published in either of the last two years. If you are driving, our parking page has the local controlled parking zones, and our roadworks and travel page has anything dug up on the way.

Other switch-ons nearby

  • Crouch End: the Crouch End tree is lit at 6pm on Saturday 5 December. Our Crouch End Christmas lights page has the details.
  • Christmas markets: Handmade In Highgate’s winter fairs at the Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution on South Grove start on 20 November, and Jacksons Lane holds its first Christmas market on 6 December. Dates are on our Christmas markets page.

We will update this page if the running order or guests change before 26 November.

Sources checked on 11 November 2026