Putney switches on 3.15pm to 7pm and Northcote Road at 5pm, both Friday 27 November, then Putney's ice trail on the 28th. Council dates are due in November.

Updated 19 October: Positively Putney’s Christmas announcement puts the Putney switch-on at 3.15pm to 7pm (its event listing still says 3pm to 6pm) and the ice sculpture trail at 10am to 6pm, with live carving in Church Square from 11am to 2pm.

Updated 3 October: Putney and Clapham Junction have both fixed their 2026 switch-ons for Friday 27 November, and Putney’s ice sculpture trail is on Saturday 28 November. Details below.

Two of Wandsworth’s 2026 switch-ons are now dated, both on Friday 27 November: Putney, 3.15pm to 7pm, and Northcote Road in Clapham Junction, lights on at 5pm. Both were set by the local business improvement districts. Wandsworth Council has not published its 2026 Christmas events list yet, and there is no reason to expect it before November. Its Christmas events page for this year does not exist: /business-and-licensing/town-centres/christmas-events-2026/ returns a 404, and none of the five town centre pages carries a festive link. Last year’s page has been taken down too.

That is normal here rather than a warning sign. The 2024 list was live by 20 November 2024, and the 2025 list was still being updated on 1 December. If you are planning around a specific switch-on, the useful thing right now is last year’s timetable, because this council repeats its pattern closely from year to year: a run of small, free, early-evening events, twelve of them across eleven town centres, between mid-November and early December, each one carol singing plus a countdown.

Every 2025 switch-on, in date order

These come from the council’s own Christmas events 2025 page, which is now offline and survives as an archived copy captured on 8 December 2025. They are 2025 dates. Do not diarise them for 2026.

  • Battersea High Street, Saturday 15 November, 12 noon to 4pm, mini Christmas market, lights on at 3.45pm
  • Clapham Junction, Friday 21 November, lights on at 5pm. The council noted there was no event around it, just the switch-on
  • Northcote Road and Abyssinia Close, Friday 21 November, 3 to 5pm, school carol singing, lights on at 5pm
  • Roehampton, Danebury Avenue, Thursday 27 November, 3 to 4.30pm, lights on at 3.45pm
  • Putney, Friday 28 November, 6pm
  • Balham, Bedford Hill, Sunday 30 November, 1 to 5pm, schools and choirs, lights on at 5pm
  • Battersea Square, Tuesday 2 December, 6.30 to 8pm, Carols in The Square, lights on at 6.45pm
  • Southfields, Wednesday 3 December, market from 3 to 6.30pm, schools singing at 4.30pm, lights on at 5pm
  • Tooting, Church Lane, Thursday 4 December, 4 to 8pm, outdoor market in the church grounds, tree lights on at 4.30pm
  • Bellevue Road, Friday 5 December, 4 to 5pm, Finton School and Trinity Road Chapel singing, lights on at 4.30pm
  • Furzedown, Friday 5 December, 3 to 5.30pm, local schools singing, lights on at 4pm
  • Wandsworth, Southside piazza, Saturday 6 December, lights on at 5pm

The markets are the part worth planning for

Three of those are proper shopping events rather than a five-minute countdown, and they are the ones people travel for.

Southfields and Tooting both build a market around the switch-on, the Tooting one running four hours in the church grounds on Church Lane. Battersea High Street does the same at lunchtime in mid-November.

Separately, the RCASU indoor market ran in the RCA Hangar on Howie Street, SW11 4AS, from Thursday 4 to Saturday 6 December, 1 to 8pm. Established in 2012, it sells ceramics, jewellery, print, zines, illustration and textiles by Royal College of Art artists and designers, and it is the closest thing the borough has to a designer-maker Christmas market.

Putney added ice sculptures around the town centre on the Saturday after its switch-on, run by the Positively Putney business improvement district rather than the council. It is back on the same pattern in 2026: see below.

There was also an Age UK Wandsworth carol concert on Thursday 11 December at St Mary Magdalen’s Catholic Church, SW18 2QU, 6 to 7pm, with traditional carols, Bach organ music and the Union Chapel Voices gospel choir. That one is ticketed.

What is confirmed for 2026

Three events, all from business improvement districts rather than the council:

  • Putney, Friday 27 November, 3.15pm to 7pm, free. Positively Putney’s Save Putney this Christmas announcement, posted on 6 October, pitches it “for after school or work from 3.15 pm until 7.00”, with live music, school choirs and local performance groups, and says the full schedule of performers will follow. Its older event listing still reads 3pm to 6pm; we have gone with the newer announcement. The lights come on on the Christmas tree on St Mary’s Church Square, but the moment of the switch-on is not yet published. This year’s theme is an Ice Queen who has “frozen Putney”.
  • Clapham Junction, Friday 27 November, lights on at 5pm. The Junction BID’s Christmas page says the evening centres on the Christmas tree at the corner of Northcote Road and Abyssinia Road, with carol singing along Northcote Road from local schools and a finale on a stage on Abyssinia Road. That is a week later than last year’s 21 November.
  • Putney ice sculpture trail, Saturday 28 November, 10am to 6pm, free. Pick up a map and find the ice sculptures around the town centre, with live ice carving in Church Square from 11am to 2pm, per the same announcement. The separate trail listing still says 10am to 4pm.

The other ten town centres have nothing published for 2026. The Junction BID’s page also lists Battersea Arts Centre’s festive soft play (1 to 24 December), Dear Santa (28 November to 24 December) and Santa’s grotto (4 to 24 December), all confirmed for 2026 and covered on our Wandsworth pantomime and Christmas shows page. The one big local fixture with 2026 dates locked down is the ice rink at Battersea Power Station, which opens on 6 November: see Battersea Power Station ice rink.

Getting to a switch-on

Almost all of these are on high streets with controlled parking and no event parking laid on, and several fall on a weekday teatime when the roads are already busy. Check parking in Wandsworth for the town centre tariffs and the one-hour zones that catch visitors out, and Wandsworth roadworks and travel for closures, including Albert Bridge, which is shut to vehicles until further notice.

When we will update this

We check the council’s town centre pages weekly from the start of November. As soon as the 2026 list is published, the dates above will be replaced with the real ones. If you spot a switch-on announced before we do, tell us at hello@wandsworthnews.co.uk.