Bloomsbury Festival begins later this week, with a month of events spilling out across the libraries, universities, churches, gardens, studios and streets of one of central London’s most distinctive neighbourhoods. We have picked out a few that caught our eye, from a look inside one of London’s last specialist craft studio spaces to walks through the architecture and social history of the area.
Bloomsbury is difficult to define by any one thing. It is a university quarter and museum district, but also a residential neighbourhood, a place of healthcare and research, gardens and squares, small businesses and creative workspaces. This year also brings two anniversaries together: the festival celebrates its 20th year while UCL marks 200 years in Bloomsbury.
That makes the Bloomsbury Festival, running throughout October, a particularly good excuse to explore the area from a few different directions.
Here are some of our picks.
Step inside Cockpit Bloomsbury
On Friday 2 October, Through the Studio Doors: Meet the Makers of Cockpit Bloomsbury offers a behind-the-scenes look at London’s only remaining specialist craft studio space.
Cockpit has occupied its building in Cockpit Yard for more than 40 years. The tour combines the unusual history of the site with an opportunity to meet some of the makers working there today. In a part of central London where space is under constant pressure, it is also a glimpse of somewhere that has managed to keep making and production in the neighbourhood.
Friday 2 October, 11am to 12pm | £10
Look at housing through art
Running throughout October at Holborn Library, Home Truths explores the relationship between housing, home and health.
Artist Lynn Dennison has developed the exhibition with families who have experienced temporary accommodation, alongside researchers and people working in health, housing and planning. It looks at the effects of homelessness and inadequate housing, as well as the experience of residents living in secure Passivhaus social housing. It is an interesting way into a subject we spend a lot of time discussing at The London Society, but through the lived experience of home rather than housing numbers alone.
1 to 31 October | Holborn Library | Free
Hear the streets of St Giles differently
Bloomsbury Festival has found a rather unusual way of exploring the history of St Giles and Seven Dials.
The Ballad Walk of St Giles combines a guided walk with historic ballads researched from collections including the British Library, Camden Archives and Cambridge University Library. Singer and researcher Vivien Ellis and Camden Guides use them to bring some of the trades, characters and street life of the area between the 17th and 19th centuries back into the streets where they happened.
3, 4, 17 and 18 October, 11am | £10
Explore UCL at 200
UCL’s bicentenary runs through this year’s festival programme.
The free Two Centuries Here exhibition spreads through the Wilkins Building, cloisters, Octagon Gallery, Japanese Garden and Student Centre, tracing how an institution founded on what was then the edge of London has grown alongside the city around it.
There is also a UCL Walking Tour on 14 October, created for the bicentenary and using the buildings and spaces of the Bloomsbury campus to tell some of the stories from its past 200 years.
Two Centuries Here: from 1 October | Free
UCL Walking Tour: Wednesday 14 October, 1pm | Free, booking required
Look at four centuries of Bloomsbury architecture
Towards the end of the festival, historian and long-standing local resident Alec Forshaw is giving a free illustrated talk on The Architecture of Bloomsbury.
Beginning with the development of the Bedford estates, the talk moves through the Foundling Hospital and British Museum, the arrival of the railways, the expansion of universities and hospitals, and the upheavals and conservation battles of the 20th century. For anyone interested in why Bloomsbury looks the way it does today, this is probably the most obviously London Society choice in the programme.
Sunday 25 October, 2.30pm | City Lit | Free
Explore the rest of Bloomsbury
There is much more across the month, including performances, exhibitions, talks, workshops and walks, with a substantial number of events free to attend. There is even a free walk through more than 200 years of Brunswick Square’s garden history on 24 October.
What we like about Bloomsbury Festival is that it provides a reason to look beyond the famous names and institutions and spend some time exploring how the neighbourhood itself works. You might go to see an exhibition about housing and discover Holborn Library, step inside a craft studio hidden behind the main streets, or find yourself looking rather more closely at a square you have walked through countless times.
Explore the full Bloomsbury Festival 2026 programme
Image credit: Bloomsbury festival by Bruce Thomas, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
