Croydon's free Open House line-up runs 12 to 20 September, but the full programme opens for booking on 19 August. Tours, an 18m market mural, new exhibition.

The date to put in your phone is 19 August, not 12 September. Open House Festival returns to Croydon from 12 to 20 September with free tours, exhibitions and workshops, but the full programme does not open for booking until 19 August, and the festival’s free ticketed activities are booked through an account on the Open House site. (Open House Festival programme)

Croydon’s line-up this year is built around two things: the borough’s modernist skyline, and the 750th anniversary of its street market. (Croydon Council newsroom, 7 August 2026)

What is opening in Croydon

Timeline of Open House Festival 2026 in Croydon: full programme opens for booking 19 August, festival and the Shaping Croydon exhibition open Saturday 12 September, Build/Play/Shape in The Queen's Gardens over the opening weekend, festival closes 20 September
Chart by Croydon Today.

A new exhibition, Shaping Croydon: Architecture and Ambition, opens at the Museum of Croydon on Saturday 12 September. The council describes it as tracing the evolution of Croydon’s skyline and the planning ideas that have shaped the town centre, using contemporary photography, archival material and future-facing displays from Croydon Urban Room.

South London artist Vic Lee has been commissioned to make an 18-metre mural marking 750 years of Croydon’s street market. The market was granted by Royal Charter in 1276 and ran in the triangle around what is now Surrey Street, which the council calls one of the oldest continuous markets in London. Public historian Charo Havermans is leading guided tours of Croydon’s historic pubs across the festival.

The festival opens with Build/Play/Shape, two days of activities for families and young adults in The Queen’s Gardens. Pif Paf Theatre brings Right to Play, a touring adventure playground with clambering frames, dens and a mud kitchen for younger children; architects Matt + Fiona are building a large-scale cardboard skyline visitors can add their own Croydon to; In Situ’s Croydon Space Station reworks the town centre’s space-age architecture as spacecraft models; and Creative Quests’ Curiosity Rover sets challenges that send families out to look at their own streets again. The Caravan Gallery, a mobile art project touring since 2000, is bringing a new exhibition of photographs taken across the borough, and artist Max Yasmin is running an interactive public artwork collecting the hopes and fears of the local community.

Four more Croydon sites are offering tours and workshops: Whitgift Almshouses, Stanley Arts, Fairfield Halls and the Norman Fisher Observatory.

What it means for you

Everything above is free, which is exactly why the booking date matters more than the festival date. The programme goes live for booking on 19 August, and Open House asks attendees to register for an account before they can book free ticketed activities, so the useful move is to set the account up ahead of the 19th rather than on the morning itself. Guided tours of a building, which is what Whitgift Almshouses, Stanley Arts, Fairfield Halls and the Norman Fisher Observatory are offering, are the parts of any Open House programme with the tightest capacity.

Two parts of the Croydon programme are less dependent on a ticket. The Museum of Croydon exhibition continues after its 12 September opening rather than running for one day only, and Build/Play/Shape is a weekend of activities in The Queen’s Gardens, the public gardens beside the Town Hall in the town centre.

If you are planning the day around the town centre, our guides to parking in Croydon and trains to London cover the practical side, and things to do in Croydon has what is open the rest of the year.

Sources

Image: Whitgift Almshouses, Croydon (Southwest View) by Doyle of London, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Chart by Croydon Today.