Hotels near The Lord Mayor's Show

Nine days after Bonfire Night, the City of London puts on a November event needing no ticket and no mailing list. The Lord Mayor's Show takes place on Saturday 14 November 2026 and sets off at 11:00 from Mansion House on Walbrook. It falls on the second Saturday in November, attached to an office that has existed since 1189, and is free to watch from anywhere on the route. The 2025 procession ran more than three miles, and the Lord Mayor's gilded State Coach is drawn by six horses.

The route runs from Mansion House past Bank junction and along Cheapside, then down Fleet Street and the Strand to the Royal Courts of Justice, returning by Aldwych, Temple Place, Victoria Embankment and Queen Victoria Street. Details of the 2026 edition, including the participant list and evening programme, appear around the beginning of October, so treat anything you read before then about a river fireworks finale as unconfirmed.

Expect road closures across the City of London from early morning, with Bank junction and Cheapside shut to traffic and buses diverted well beyond the route. That is the trade-off for a daytime event in a part of London that is otherwise dead on a Saturday. Mansion House station on the London Underground (Circle and District lines) is about three minutes from the start; Bank station, served by the Central, Northern and Waterloo and City lines and the Docklands Light Railway, sits on the route itself and gets busy from 10:00.

Pro Tip: Stand on Cheapside near St Mary-le-Bow by 10:30 rather than squeezing into the Walbrook junction at Mansion House. The procession leaves at 11:00 and takes a while to reach you, the pavement is wider, and you can duck into the churchyard when the November rain arrives.