Free in London: What's On This Week and the Rest of November

London is an expensive city that keeps handing out free things, and November is one of the better months for it. The lights are already up, the big museums are between crowds, and there is a once-a-year procession through the City this coming Saturday. Here is what is genuinely on, with real dates — nothing that needs a ticket you have to pay for.

The Lord Mayor's Show, Saturday 14 November

This is the big one, and it costs nothing to watch. The Show sets off from Mansion House at 11am on Saturday 14 November and winds more than three miles through the City of London, with over 7,000 people, marching bands, floats, horses and the gilded State Coach that was built in 1757. The Lord Mayor is back at Mansion House by around 2.30pm.

It has fallen on the second Saturday in November every year since 1959, and it is described — fairly — as the least-rehearsed civic procession in the world. You do not need a ticket or a spot in a stand. Pick a point along the route, get there early, and dress for the weather.

A brand-new free museum opens on 28 November

The London Museum opens its new home in Smithfield's General Market on 28 November, at West Smithfield, EC1A 9AG. The permanent galleries are free.

It is laid out in three parts: Real Time at the entrance, running live London data; Our Time in the Linbury Hall, built around thirteen large installations; and Past Time, the subterranean galleries that take London's history chronologically and thematically. Among the objects listed for display are the Whitechapel fatberg, Banksy's Piranhas, Charles I's execution vest, and the Lord Mayor's Coach — which, if you watch the Show this Saturday, you will have already seen on the move.

Walk-ups are welcome, but the museum strongly recommends booking a free ticket to guarantee entry, especially in the first few weeks. Free admission tickets are currently available for dates up to 31 December.

Four free exhibitions worth the trip

All of these are free, and all of them are small enough to see properly in under an hour.

• Yinka Shonibare and Thomas Gainsborough: A Conversation — National Gallery, Room 1, until 7 February 2027. Shonibare's Mr. and Mrs. Andrews without their Heads (1998) hangs with the Gainsborough that inspired it for the first time since it was made.
• Arcadia by Sir John Akomfrah — Natural History Museum, Jerwood Gallery, 6 November to 3 May 2027. A multi-screen film on the movement of plants, people, animals, goods and ideas between the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia from the 1400s onwards, with a soundtrack of nature recordings, opera and poetry. No ticket needed for the installation itself, though the museum suggests booking free entry in advance.
• Tate Britain Commission: Zineb Sedira — Duveen Galleries, until 17 January 2027. The Franco-Algerian artist's largest UK commission, made in response to those enormous neo-classical halls.
• Declaring independence: USA 250 — British Museum, Room 3, until 29 November. Four objects, including a handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence on loan from West Sussex Record Office. This one closes at the end of the month, so it is the first to go.

The best free view in London

The Sky Garden sits 155 metres up on the 35th floor of 20 Fenchurch Street — the Walkie Talkie — with 360-degree views across the Thames, Tower Bridge, the Shard and the City towers, inside a glasshouse full of planting.

Entry is free but you must book ahead at skygarden.london. Tickets are released every Monday for the week three weeks out, in one-hour slots, and they go. Bring photographic ID in the name the booking was made in — they do check. If the free slots are gone, a table at one of the bars or restaurants gets you up there instead, though that is no longer free.

The lights are already on

The Christmas displays have been switching on through the month and all of them are free to look at: Carnaby Street on 4 November, Regent Street on 5 November and Oxford Street on 9 November are lit. Covent Garden follows on 12 November.

Regent Street to Carnaby to Oxford Street is a comfortable half-hour walk if you do not stop, and considerably longer if you do.

And the parks

The royal parks are free, and November does something to them that July does not — low light, bare branches, and far fewer people in them. St James's Park between the Mall and Buckingham Palace takes twenty minutes and is the single easiest thing on this list to fit around something else.

Walking between it all

Most of what is above sits within a tight band of central London, and the gaps between them are short enough to walk. That is usually the cheapest way to see the city, and the way you notice the most.

If you would rather have someone point things out as you go, Viazo runs walking tours across London — but the list above stands on its own, and none of it needs us.