The eighth Chelsea History Festival runs 1 to 4 October across seven venues. The programme lists 127 sessions, 25 of them free, and tickets run from £2 to £40.
The Chelsea History Festival returns for its eighth year from Thursday 1 to Sunday 4 October 2026, and tickets are already on sale. The useful thing to know before you book is that a quarter of it costs nothing.
Counted from the festival’s own programme page on 3 September, there are 127 separate sessions listed across the four days. Twenty-five of them are free. Paid tickets run from £2 to £40, and the National Army Museum puts the same range on its listing as “£0.00 to £40.00” (National Army Museum).
Two things the listings do not put up front. Every paid ticket carries a £2 booking fee per transaction, not per ticket, so booking four sessions in one go costs £2 rather than £8. And the programme has already started to sell out: the Rock & Roll Chelsea walking tour on Thursday 1 October at 11.00am, £20, was the first to go, and its page now reads “Tickets have now sold out”.
The four days, by size
| Day | Sessions listed | Free |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday 1 October | 27 | 2 |
| Friday 2 October | 28 | 3 |
| Saturday 3 October | 38 | 12 |
| Sunday 4 October | 34 | 8 |
The weekend is where the free programme sits. If you are bringing children or you do not want to spend anything, Saturday and Sunday carry 20 of the 25 free sessions between them.
What is free
All of these are listed as free on the festival programme:
- Chelsea Physic Garden Open Family Weekend, Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October, both days. The garden’s festival listing gives the dates as “3 - 4 October 2026” and publishes no times; you can book or walk in on the day
- Chelsea Heritage Quarter Highlights Tours with London Heritage Guides, Saturday 11.00am to 3.30pm and Sunday 11.00am to 3.00pm, meeting at the National Army Museum
- Living History Reenactors at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, Saturday and Sunday, 11.00am to 3.00pm
- Print, Pattern and Play: Family Workshop, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Saturday 11.00am to 4.00pm
- Creative Collage: Maps, Memories and Making, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Sunday 11.00am to 4.00pm
- Hands on history: World War Two home front object handling, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Sunday 10.00am to 4.00pm
- Old London Slang: A Cockney Chat with Iona Ball, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Thursday 3.30pm
- The Modern-Day Monuments Men: The Cultural Property Protection Unit, National Army Museum, Friday 12.00pm
- The Sound of Punjab, traditional and contemporary dhol drumming, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Saturday 1.00pm
- Chelsea Pensioners’ Collection object handling, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Soane Stable Yard, Thursday 1 to Saturday 3 October, a drop-in with no ticket required
Two more cost almost nothing: the BSL tour of the Royal Hospital Chelsea with Edward Richards on Saturday at 2.15pm is £2 to £10, and the botanical illustration workshop at Chelsea Physic Garden on Sunday at 12.30pm is £5.
Where it actually happens
The festival is spread across seven venues, not one, and two of them carry most of it. By session count on the programme page:
| Venue | Sessions |
|---|---|
| National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road | 58 |
| Royal Hospital Chelsea | 50 |
| Chelsea Physic Garden | 11 |
| Royal Court Theatre | 3 |
| Garrison Chapel | 3 |
| Chelsea Old Church | 1 |
| Chelsea Theatre | 1 |
Several of the walking tours are listed under the National Army Museum because that is where they start, not because they stay there. Check the meeting point on your ticket.
The names on the bill
John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, is guest curator, and appears in John Simpson Unspun at the National Army Museum on Friday 2 October at 4.00pm (£20). Other headline sessions include Monty Halls on Inverailort House and the birth of the Special Forces (Friday 6.00pm, £20), Andrew Roberts, Jonathan Fennell on the Second World War from 1931 to 1941 (Friday 4.00pm, £15), Anna Whitelock, and Blue Badge guide Katie Wignall on the hidden details of Chelsea (Thursday and Friday, £20).
The most expensive thing in the programme is the Chapel Choir performing the choral music of Edward Elgar at the Royal Hospital on Friday evening, £20 to £40. The twilight tours of the Royal Hospital, Thursday and Saturday from 6.00pm, are £35.
Booking, and the practical bit
Everything is booked through the Chelsea Heritage Quarter, which runs the festival as a partnership between the National Army Museum, Chelsea Physic Garden, the Royal Hospital Chelsea and Cadogan, who sponsor it. The Chelsea Citizen is the media partner.
One closure lands squarely on the last day. The Palace to Palace charity cycle ride puts cyclists on Fulham Road and Beaufort Street from 6.50am to 5.45pm on Sunday 4 October, the festival’s busiest day, according to the council’s works and events bulletin dated 27 August. The festival does not mention it.
Sloane Square is the nearest tube for the Royal Court Theatre and the King’s Road end; for the National Army Museum and the Royal Hospital, the 170 and the 239 stop on Royal Hospital Road, and it is about a 15 minute walk from Sloane Square. Driving is the worse option: see our guide to parking in Kensington and Chelsea for the borough’s charges, and check roadworks and travel before you set off.
Every event page carries walking times to the other venues, which is worth using if you are booking two things close together. From the National Army Museum it is 3 minutes to the Royal Hospital, 4 to Garrison Chapel, 5 to Chelsea Physic Garden, 10 to the Royal Court, 12 to Cadogan Hall, 14 to Chelsea Old Church and 23 to Chelsea Theatre.
Times and prices here were taken from the festival’s own programme page on 3 September 2026. Individual sessions sell out, and the programme page is the one that gets updated, so check it against your booking.
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