Chelsea History Festival
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Be entertained, educated and inspired through local, national and global history through an immersive programme of events, storytelling and performances. Tickets now on sale. Book now to make sure you don't miss out.
The flagship event of Chelsea Heritage Quarter, the Festival brings history to life in one of the capital's most storied neighbourhoods. This year's theme, World History, will be explored through around 100 talks, performances, concerts, walking tours, workshops and family activities examining the people, events and ideas that have shaped societies across the globe.
With support from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and headline sponsor Cadogan, the programme will unfold across Chelsea Physic Garden, the National Army Museum and Royal Hospital Chelsea, as well as Chelsea Old Church, Chelsea Theatre, Royal Court Theatre and Garrison Chapel.
Tickets are now on sale, find out more including which events are free here.
View the full programme here.
New for 2026, acclaimed broadcaster and journalist John Simpson joins the Festival as Guest Curator. In John Simpson Unspun, at the National Army Museum on Friday 2 October at 4pm, he will sit down with Chelsea Citizen Editor Rob McGibbon to reflect on more than six decades spent reporting the first draft of world history. Moving beyond the wars, political upheavals and encounters with world leaders, the conversation will reveal the man behind the camera and the headlines.
Chelsea Physic Garden will also open free of charge on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October, giving visitors the opportunity to explore London’s oldest botanic garden and its remarkable collection
of medicinal, edible and useful plants.
Event highlights also include:
• The History of Chelsea in Four Objects, bringing together collection items from across Chelsea Heritage Quarter to tell the story of the neighbourhood and its wider influence.
• At Chelsea Physic Garden, Dr Menaka PP Bora leads Mudra and Music, an interactive wellbeing workshop combining Indian dance, music, plant symbolism and ancient healing.
• Political historian Dr Nigel Fletcher presents new archival research into the relationship between Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth II in Churchill’s Queen: The Remarkable Friendship that Shaped Our Age.
• Multi-award-winning storyteller Anna Conomos-Wedlock brings the life of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Romanova, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, into vivid focus through dramatic storytelling, song and atmospheric soundscapes in Fashion & Fables.
• Professor Rosamund Oates places deaf people at the centre of the story of early modern England in Silent Histories.
• Travel writer Daniel Stables takes audiences around the world in Fiesta: A Journey Through Festivity, examining what celebrations from Venice Carnival to the whirling dervishes of Konya reveal about culture, community and our shared humanity.
• Tina Hodgkinson uncovers the capital through the eyes of Agatha Christie, exploring the theatres, hotels, suburban streets and hidden corners that influenced the life and fiction of the Queen of Crime.
