Hey Neighbour,
There’s so many things to do in North London this weekend. Here’s the full list.
— Maryam Bitege
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Your guide to what’s happening in North London this week. Events marked with (£) require a ticket in advance.
Wine Car Boot | 📍Coal Drops Yard, N1C | 25 July | (£)
It’s like a farmers' market but for wine. You’ll see independent wine shops and importers set up out of car boots at Coal Drops Yard, pouring their favourites for you to taste and buy. Free to walk in, then £20 gets you a glass, a tote and your first five tokens, and you drink at shop prices rather than bar prices, so a glass of decent rosé can be £2.50. Cider, beer and vermouth too, plus food and music. Dogs and kids welcome. 12pm to 8pm
Pick Your Own Flowers at GROW Farm | 📍GROW Farm, Totteridge Academy, N20 | 25 July | Free
Cut your own flowers on a working farm in Totteridge, fill a jar and take them home, from £4. One woman who went last year said she felt she was in a little bit of heaven, and would have enjoyed it even without the flowers, just walking round, sniffing, being among them. Sunflowers, cosmos, snapdragons, all grown without chemicals, and what you pay helps teach local young people to grow. Book a free place, 10am to 2pm.
Islington Boot Fair | 📍Vittoria Primary School, N1 | 26 July | Free
New boot fair is opening in Islington, in the school playground on Treaty Street by the canal, and running every other Sunday from here on. Vintage clothes, books, records, homeware, toys, plants, tools and whatever else the sellers have turned out, from a family running it as a preloved and vintage market. Come early for the good stuff. 9am to 4pm.
Elmhurst Summer Garden Party | 📍The Elmhurst, N17 | 25 July | Free /(£)
Ska played on ukuleles, with kazoos, in a pub garden. The Ukulele Ska Collective do two sets of Prince Buster, The Specials and Toots and the Maytals, with vinyl DJs between them, an outdoor bar and food all day. Free in, but book ahead and you get two-for-one cocktails. 3pm to 10.30pm.
AG Fest 2026 | 📍Copthall Playing Fields, NW4 | 25 July | (£)
DJ AG, the street DJ whose live sets took off online, throws his first festival on Copthall Playing Fields in Barnet. Two stages running across genres from midday to 10pm, with food from around the world, a funfair, face painting and ice cream vans for the kids. Lyrics are kept clean so it works for all ages, the site is wheelchair accessible, and there's a free shuttle all day from the nearest tube. Family tickets need everyone to arrive together.
Wolves Lane Community Fun Day | 📍Wolves Lane Centre, N22 | 26 July | Free
Free family day at the Wolves Lane Centre, a working plant nursery under glass in Wood Green. Wander the site on a guided tour, buy plants grown there, and stay for live music, market stalls, games and food. Register for a free ticket. 12pm to 6pm.
The Great Enfield Vintage & Collectibles Fair | 📍St Stephen's Church Hall, EN1 | 25 July | (£)
Spend a quid to rummage through Victorian glass, vintage records, old perfume bottles, jewellery and cigarette cards, sold by the same local stallholders month after month. Fry-ups, soup and cake in the cafe all day, and a table to sit at if you come alone. £1 in, kids and dogs free. 9am to 3pm.
Grand Summer Fête | 📍Art Workers' Guild, WC1N | 25 July | Free
A summer fête where the games are made and run by real artists and designers, the Art Workers' Guild, going since 1884. Toy theatre, fortune telling, a photo studio and plenty to have a go at, in their Bloomsbury hall. Free, bring the family. 12pm to 5pm.
Ice Heritage Weekend | 📍London Canal Museum, N1 | 25 - 26 July | (£)
Once a year the London Canal Museum opens the Victorian ice wells beneath the building, and this is the weekend. Norwegian ice was once shipped down the Regent's Canal and lowered into these wells, and on Sunday you can climb down into them with a guide, watch Victorian ice cream made without a freezer, and see rare archive film. Saturday is the family day, with storytelling, an ice trail and a hunt through old photos of the ice trade. Boat trips run both days. The Sunday descent is an adults' event, minimum age 12, and needs booking ahead.
James Barnor in Conversation | 📍October Gallery, WC1N | 25 July | (£)
James Barnor is 96 and one of the most influential photographers of his generation, the man who shot Ghana's road to independence and then Black London through the swinging sixties. He's coming to the October Gallery in Bloomsbury to talk through a career spanning seventy years and two continents, in conversation with curator Eleri Fanshawe. A rare chance to hear him in person. £10, 3pm to 4.30pm.
Camden Market South Asian Mela | 📍Camden Market Hawley Wharf, NW1 | 25 July | Free
Day of South Asian music, dance and food across Camden Market, with parades and stilt-walkers roaming the site and performances on the main stage at Hawley Wharf. Try your hand at samosa-making, rangoli, woodblock printing or sari dress-up, all free and open to everyone, and there's henna, face painting and giant walkabout puppets for the kids. One parade leads to a dhol drumming workshop in the Stables amphitheatre (needs booking separately). Canalside music and activities through the afternoon, 12.30pm to 6pm.
1-Hour Reading Rave | 📍Gasholder Park, N1C | 26 July | Free
It's called a rave but really it's an hour of strangers sitting in a park reading books with their phones off. Bring something to read and something to sit on, and stick around after to swap recommendations. Free, RSVP for a spot, 2pm to 3pm.
Islington Festival of Music and Art | 📍Various venues across Islington | 24 July - 2 August | (£)
This started as garden concerts during lockdown in 2020 and has since grown into a ten-day festival across Islington. Yoga with a harp, swing dancing at the Angel piazza, Sidney Bechet-inspired jazz, and Edward Elgar meets Oscar Wilde. The theme this year is music inspired by literature, from Shakespeare to Tolstoy and Dante to Wilde. Intimate venues throughout the borough including Little Angel Theatre, Old Sessions House and Christ Church Highbury.
Paint Hampstead Landscape | 📍Kenwood House, NW3 | 25 July | (£)
Constable painted this view. Two hours on the Heath outside Kenwood House, painting the city in the distance, with a tutor and only five other people, so you actually get taught. Whatever you can or can't draw, and whatever you like working in. Bring your materials. If it rains, everyone goes in the café.
The Barn x Fabrica X: London Brew Up | 📍Fabrica X, N1 | 25 July | (£)
Spend a Saturday afternoon watching people compete at making coffee. Eighteen home brewers battle it out live at Fabrica X in King's Cross, and a £5 spectator ticket gets you a drink, a bag of coffee to take home and a spot in the raffle. Berlin roasters The Barn are throwing it to mark a year in London, and if you fancy entering yourself you don't have to be a barista, just someone who loves brewing at home. Competition runs 2pm to 5pm, bar open until 7pm, and £15 if you want to compete.
London Brick Festival | 📍Royal National Hotel, WC1 | 26 July | (£)
Not just a kids' day out. The London Brick Festival pulls in serious adult builders and collectors alongside the families, with huge LEGO displays to gawp at, speed building competitions, a hands-on building area, and traders selling everything from loose bricks to long-retired sets. Standard entry is £8 adults, £6 children, or £22 for a family of four, under 5s free. Early entry at 10am is £15 and gets you an extra hour plus a free LEGO gift. Runs until 4pm.
Cyprus Week | 📍Theatro Technis, NW1 | 20 - 26 July | Free
In 1974 Cyprus was split in two, and many who fled ended up here, in the streets around Camden's Theatro Technis. Fifty-two years on, the theatre marks it with a week of Cypriot plays, music and film, and this is the closing weekend. Saturday night is theatre and Cypriot stand-up; Sunday afternoon, poetry, live music and a talk from writer Alex Christofi. An art show by two British Cypriot artists runs throughout. All free. Saturday from 7.30pm, Sunday from 5pm.
Camley Street Festival | 📍Camley Street Underpass, N1C | 25 July | Free Community festival held under the Camley Street underpass in King's Cross, with skateboarding workshops for kids (boards and helmets provided), live music, a painting workshop, market stalls and face painting. The first 150 through get a free meal token. There's also word on a new £1m fund giving grants to local community groups, worth catching if you run one. 12pm to 4pm.
South Asian Flavours | 📍Camden People's Theatre, NW1 | 25 July | Pay what you can
A talk about how Drummond Street became one of London's great South Asian food streets, then a taste of food from the restaurants that made it, then a walk down the street itself. Dr Alia Amir hosts, with cookbook author Dina Begum. 1.30pm to 4pm.
Love Our Park Summer Festival | 📍Wray Crescent Open Space, N4 | 25 July | Free
Six hours of summer festival on the park between Stroud Green and Islington, put on by the people who look after it. Live music and a bar, African drum and dance workshops, Punch and Judy, a coconut shy, a bouncy castle and stilt walkers, with food and gift stalls round the edge. 12pm to 6pm.
Summer Intergenerational Event | 📍Islington Ecology Centre, N5 | 25 July | Free
Kids and older neighbours spend a morning together at the Ecology Centre, meeting the animals Zoolab bring in, walking the nature reserve and making things. Tea and biscuits on the house, no booking, just turn up. 10.30am to 1pm.
Reggae Chef Free Caribbean Cooking Classes | 📍Camden Market, NW1 | 26 July | Free
They're setting up a community kitchen at Camden Market to teach people to cook proper Caribbean food on a small budget, jerk chicken, curry goat, saltfish fritters, rice and peas, vegan yam curry. It started because of the cost of living, so nobody goes without a decent meal, but the classes are free and open whatever your situation. You cook, you serve what you've made, and you take the rest home. This date is the induction, and places are limited. Sign up if you want in.
Lordship Hub Birthday Party | 📍Lordship Hub, N17 | 25 July | Free
The Lordship Hub turns thirteen and is throwing itself a party in the Rec. Egg and spoon, three-legged and sack races, a water pistol fight, hook-a-duck, a tattoo station and bubbles, all free, with cake cut at 3.15pm. 12pm to 4pm.
GRAVITY | 📍Alexandra Palace, N22 | 23 - 28 July | Free
An exhibition of paintings by Niah McGiff, who paints over her old canvases and lets the earlier ones show through, so you can see the ghosts of what was there before. Figures caught somewhere between appearing and vanishing, built up and scraped back again. Free to walk in, 10am to 4.30pm daily.
Arrivals Community Event | 📍The Old Library, NW9 | 25 July | Free
A community day about Grahame Park and the people who've made it home. The estate sits on the old Hendon Aerodrome, so it's been a place of arrivals twice over, first planes, then families from all over. Bollywood dancing, an art show, crafts, a DJ, food and a kids' zone. Bring your old teenage photos too, the Museum of Youth Culture are there scanning albums and clothes for an archive of growing up in Barnet. 1pm to 4pm.
Summer Fashion Weekend | 📍Muswell Hill Books & Parlour, N10 | 25 - 26 July | Free
Two women's clothing labels, cissie&b and COZI, take over the parlour at the back of Muswell Hill Books for the weekend, selling summer separates and accessories. Worth a look if you're topping up a holiday wardrobe, and it puts a bit of trade through an independent bookshop while you're at it.
Baby & Children's Nearly New Sale | 📍Enfield Grammar Upper School, EN2 | 25 July | (£)
Thousands of second-hand toys, clothes, books and baby gear for children up to 11, all in one school hall, at a fraction of new prices. Last one of the season. £2.50 in, children free, cash only, free parking, and prams welcome. 10.30am to 12pm.
Wonderful Wildlife Weekends | 📍Camley Street Natural Park, N1C | 26 July | Free
Give the kids a net and let them fish about in the pond to see what's living in it, toads, tadpoles, worms under the logs. It's a proper nature reserve tucked behind King's Cross station, and a Wildlife Trust ranger runs the session. Dress for mud, no booking, children need an adult with them. 1pm to 3pm.
Dine N Duets at Soul Mama | 📍Soul Mama, N1 | 25 July | (£)
Live band and singers working through soul duets and singalong favourites while you eat, at Soul Mama in Islington, whose menu runs across African, Caribbean and South American cooking. You're expected to join in, there are games and a host running the night, so it's not one to sit quietly through. Tickets from £22.98, food ordered on the night.
Gardeners' Question Time | 📍Lordship Hub, N17 | 26 July | Free
Bring your gardening problems to a panel of local growers at the Lordship Hub and get some proper advice. There's a plant sale on too, and it opens this year's Tottenham Flower and Produce Festival. Free, 1.30pm to 3.30pm.
Brent's Big Family Bonanza | 📍Oakington Manor Primary School, HA9 | 25 July | Free
Afternoon in a Wembley school playground with a bouncy castle, face painting, music, and popcorn, candy floss and slush for the kids. Free entry, just turn up. 3pm to 7pm.
Turnpike Lane and South Asian Heritage Walk | 📍Ducketts Common, N8 | 26 July | Free
90 walk round Turnpike Lane with Deborah Hedgecock, curator of Bruce Castle Museum, tracing the South Asian history of the streets you use every week, the places, the people and the stories behind them. Free, meet outside Cafe Roj on Ducketts Common at 10.45 for an 11am start. Wear decent shoes.
Aliens Screening | 📍The Beehive, N17 | 26 July | (£)
Aliens turns forty this year, and Film Tottenham are showing it on a big screen in the back room of the Beehive, part of a season on women in action films. Stay after and talk about Ripley with everyone else. £6, or £5 for freelancers and over 60s, over 18s only, subtitled.