Ealing Christmas Lights 2026: Greenford Quay First, 27 Nov

There is no single Ealing Christmas lights switch-on. The borough has lights in six town centres, and the events under them are run by three different sorts of organisation: business improvement districts in Acton and Ealing, a private landlord at Greenford Quay, and community groups in Hanwell, Northfields and Southall.

Only Greenford Quay has a 2026 date so far: Friday 27 and Saturday 28 November. On 4 September none of them had one, and most of the switch-on pages still live in the borough are last year’s, a couple of them two years old. This page lists what each one did last year, who announces it, and the traps in the pages that are still up.

Updated 6 October: Greenford Quay’s Christmas lights weekend is out, Friday 27 and Saturday 28 November, and Gunnersbury has a Christmas craft market on 28 and 29 November. No town centre switch-on has a date yet.

What is confirmed for 2026

On 4 September the answer was nothing. On 6 October it is three things, none of them a town centre switch-on:

• Greenford Quay Xmas Lights, Friday 27 November, 4pm to 8pm, and Saturday 28 November, 12pm to 6pm, free, at Tillermans Court, Grenan Square, UB6 0FT. Details are below.
• Gunnersbury Christmas Craft Market, Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 November, 10am to 4pm, free entry and no booking: handmade crafts and gifts, plants and food, set out by the Rothschild Rooms (Gunnersbury).
• Duck Pond Christmas market, Sunday 13 December, 10am to 4pm, outside the museum in Gunnersbury Park (Duck Pond Market).

Every borough Christmas market with a 2026 date is on our Christmas markets page.

Who has still published nothing, as of 6 October:

• Make It Ealing, the Ealing town centre BID: its events page now lists the Ealing Broadway Santa’s grotto (14 November to 24 December, on our Santa’s grotto page) and two candle-making workshops, but no lights event of any kind (events).
• Your Acton BID posted news on 1 and 5 October 2026, about the West London Orbital consultation and its customer service awards, but has published no Christmas 2026 page (youractonbid.co.uk).
• Ealing Council’s arts site still has last year’s round-up live with no indication that it is out of date (ealingculture.org).

On last year’s timing the announcements land through late October and early November, roughly three weeks before the events themselves.

Where the lights are

The last time the council itemised where the borough’s lights go, it named six town centres: Acton, Ealing Broadway, Greenford, Hanwell, Southall and West Ealing. That was in a thank-you to the sponsors who paid for them, published on 27 November 2018 (Around Ealing), and the council has published no equivalent list since. Lights going up is not the same as a switch-on ceremony, and not all six centres get one.

Last year, town by town

Most of that list is the council’s own, from ealingculture.org, which is worth reading in full because it also carries the wreath, candle and sip-and-paint workshops. Three rows are not on it and come from the organisers instead: the Greenford Quay festive market on the Saturday, the Churchfield Road maker’s market on 13 December, and the Southall dates. The council’s page is also the only source that puts a time on the Greenford Quay switch-on, and it says 5pm.

Updated 29 September: the first 2026 date in that list is out. Duck Pond Market, which was at Pitzhanger last November, has moved its borough market to Gunnersbury Park and lists a Christmas market there on Sunday 13 December, 10am to 4pm (duckpondmarket.com).

Acton: the borough’s only real switch-on ceremony

Acton is the one town centre that runs a proper countdown. In 2025 Your Acton BID held it at The Mount, W3 9NW, on Sunday 23 November, 10am to 5pm, with live performances from 2pm and the lights switch-on countdown after 4pm, wrapped around the Acton Maker’s Christmas Market (Your Acton BID).

The year before it was Sunday 24 November 2024, 10am to 6pm, at the same place, with artisan traders, carol singers, mulled wine and a 3D light installation (Ealing Nub News, 12 November 2024).

Two Novembers running it has been the second-to-last Sunday of the month, but the BID has not said anything about 2026, so that is a pattern and not a date.

One thing to watch on that page: the download button under the “Christmas Guide” heading is labelled “Your Acton BID Christmas_Guide_2024_PDF” on a page headed 2025. The BID reused the file name, so check the year inside any guide you download.

Greenford Quay: the first 2026 date

2026: Friday 27 November, 4pm to 8pm, and Saturday 28 November, 12pm to 6pm. T&T Street Food Markets, which runs the Brentham Club night market, has put up a Greenford Quay Xmas Lights page with live music canalside, street food, DJs, face painting, hair braiding, giant garden games and creative workshops, family and dog friendly, and free to attend. It is at Tillermans Court, Grenan Square, UB6 0FT, six minutes’ walk from Greenford station or 13 from Sudbury Hill (T&T Street Food Markets).

Two cautions. The T&T page does not print a year, but Friday 27 and Saturday 28 November only fall that way in 2026 (in 2025 the weekend was the 28th and 29th). And it does not say what time anything is switched on; last year the council put the tree switch-on at 5pm on the Friday. Greenford Quay’s own events page had nothing for Christmas on 6 October.

Greenford Quay in 2025: the old page is still live, and its own times disagree

Greenford Quay, the Greystar development off Rockware Avenue, runs a two-day festive weekend and switches on a Christmas tree rather than street lights. In 2025 it was Friday 28 November for the tree switch-on and Saturday 29 November for the festive market, free to attend, with mulled wine, a heated tent, artisan stalls and live music.

Its 2025 event page is still up at a guessable URL and reads as though it is current, so be careful with it. It also contradicts itself: the body says “Friday 28th November from 4PM” and “Saturday 29th November from 12PM”, while the “Where / When” summary at the foot of the same page says “28th November from 12pm & 29th November from 4pm”, with the times swapped (greenfordquay.com). Ealing Council’s arts page gives the switch-on as 5pm on the Friday, a third version again.

Note also that 28 November was a Friday in 2025 and is a Saturday in 2026, so that page cannot be this year’s whatever it says.

Southall

Southall’s festive event has moved around. In 2024 it was a Christmas Lights and Market on Thursday 5 December, 4pm to 9pm, at Parkside Yards, The Green Quarter, Seva Drive, UB1 1GH. In 2025 it became Festive Markets over the weekend of 6 and 7 December, with no lights ceremony named. Nothing is published for 2026.

Ealing town centre

Ealing Broadway has the borough’s biggest lights and, in recent years, no switch-on ceremony to go with them. In 2024 the nearest thing was Ealing Christmas Carols on Saturday 30 November, at Filmworks Walk, W5 5AH, with a family disco, Santa’s grotto and face painting. The BID’s own announcement, dated 11 November 2024, gave the hours two ways in consecutive sentences, “from 2-5 pm” and then “from 2 pm”, and listed ten performing groups: Me-Time Pop Choir, Pamela Howard School of Dance, Voices Singing School, Clifton Lodge, St Gregory’s, Drayton Green, Stage Coach Ealing Broadway, Love2Sing, Questors and a family disco (Make It Ealing). Ealing Nub News gave the same event as 2pm to 7pm, so take the BID’s own 5pm finish over the listing. Nothing comparable followed in 2025: the BID’s only festive posts that December were about getting home safely and leaving the car at home.

It was not always this way. In 2018 Make It Ealing held a full ceremony in Elizabeth Square at Dickens Yard, on Saturday 24 November, with the presenter Angellica Bell switching the tree on alongside pupils from Christ the Saviour primary school, the Mayor of Ealing and the council leader (Around Ealing).

Hanwell and Northfields

Both run markets rather than switch-ons: Hanwell’s Winter and pre-Christmas Market was Saturday 22 November 2025, and the Northfields Christmas Fayre was Saturday 6 December 2025.

Before you set off

Acton’s event closes The Mount to traffic, and the Ealing and Southall markets sit on busy shopping streets, so check roadworks and travel and the normal controlled parking hours on our parking in Ealing page before driving. Greenford Quay is a five-minute walk from Greenford station on the Central line.

What we will update, and when

• Acton: Your Acton BID publishes a Christmas page each year. Last year’s went up in the first half of November.
• Greenford Quay: the switch-on time, if Greenford Quay or T&T publishes one.
• Southall, Hanwell and Northfields: expect these through Ealing Council’s arts listings in November.
• Ealing Broadway: Make It Ealing, if it runs anything at all this year.

Nothing on this page is a forecast. The 2026 dates are the organisers’ own, read on 6 October 2026; every other date is one that has already happened, and it is labelled with its year for that reason. This page is rewritten as each 2026 announcement lands. For the rest of the year’s outings, see things to do in Ealing.