Open daily from Friday 20 November, 10am to 8pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Free entry, three gates, no ice rink, and no park and ride bus on Sundays.

The Winchester Cathedral Christmas Market runs from Friday 20 November to Tuesday 22 December 2026. Entry is free and you do not need to book. The cathedral has published its opening times, and they are not the same every day: 10am to 8pm on Fridays and Saturdays, 10am to 6pm from Sunday through to Thursday.

Updated 3 October: park and ride and central car park prices rise on 1 November, before the market opens; the figures below are the new ones. The cathedral has also dated its Lantern Parade, Monday 23 November.

That is the whole answer to the question most people arrive with. The rest of this page is the practical stuff the cathedral’s own pages either bury or contradict.

Opening times and dates

Hours
Friday and Saturday 10.00am to 8.00pm
Sunday to Thursday 10.00am to 6.00pm

Both the dates and the times are from the cathedral’s Christmas market page, which also says: “Admission to the Christmas Market is free, no pre-booking required.”

One warning about the cathedral’s own website. Its where to visit page still carries last year’s run, “21st November - 22nd December 2025”. The Christmas market page is the current one. If two pages on the same site disagree, that is the one to trust.

Three ways in, and one of them is always the queue

The cathedral lists three entrances and effectively admits that everyone uses the same one:

  • Curle’s Passage, to the right of the cathedral, described as “our most popular entrance”.
  • Colebrook Street, also known as the Water Gate.
  • St Swithun’s Street.

If the first has a queue down the pavement, the other two are a two-minute walk away. The cathedral also suggests a weekday visit if you are bringing a dog, a pushchair or a wheelchair, because “weekends at the market can be very busy”.

No, there is no ice rink

This is the most-asked question about the market and the cathedral does not answer it anywhere on its 2026 Christmas pages, which is why the confusion keeps going.

The rink was a fixture of the market for years. It was replaced by a performance stage in 2021 and has not come back (Wikipedia). Nothing on the cathedral’s 2026 pages mentions skating. Listings sites that still show a “Winchester Cathedral Ice Rink” are running an old page.

What is actually there

Around 120 wooden chalets in the cathedral close, in the German market style the event has used since it started in 2006. It has run every year since except 2020.

Categories the cathedral lists for its traders include food and drink, art, decorations and homeware, bath and body, accessories and clothing, children’s and garden. Two chalets are not shops in the usual sense: chalet 63 is the Winchester BID chalet, which rotates through the city’s independent retailers, and a charity chalet changes hands most days through the run. Hampshire Fare, the county’s food and drink membership body, also takes a chalet.

One caution on the trader list: the cathedral’s traders page carries a notice that “all listed traders are from the 2025 Winchester Cathedral Christmas Market”. The 2026 line-up is not up yet.

Going inside the cathedral is a separate ticket

The market is free. The cathedral is not. Entry to the building is by an annual pass, with £1 off per pass if you book online, and it includes the Kings and Scribes exhibition. Cathedral opening is Monday to Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 12.30pm to 3pm, and closures are posted at short notice on its plan your visit page, so check that before you build a day around it.

If you only have twenty minutes, the cathedral publishes a whistlestop route through the highlights.

The travel advice is right, with one hole in it

The cathedral’s how to get here page tells drivers to use the park and ride, and adds that “during late night openings, services for the Park and Ride are extended into the evenings”.

Check that against the council before you rely on it. Winchester City Council’s park and ride FAQs say the service runs 6.25am to 7.30pm Monday to Friday and 7am to 6.30pm on Saturdays, and that no buses run on Sundays or public holidays, though the car parks stay free. No extended Christmas timetable is published on that page.

So the two days the market is open until 8pm, Friday and Saturday, are the two days the standard park and ride finishes earliest relative to closing time. And a Sunday visit by park and ride is not possible at all unless a special timetable is announced. Five sites hold 2,137 spaces between them. From 1 November parking there is £4.50 a day, the £3 off-peak ticket is withdrawn, and it stays free after 4pm at Barfield and St Catherine’s Monday to Saturday (council notice).

Driving in instead means the central car parks, which charge every day of the week including Sundays and bank holidays: from 1 November, £2.20 for an hour and £8.00 for four, and the old £7.80 weekend six-hour ticket at The Brooks and Middle Brook Street is gone. Tower Street is the big one at 515 spaces. Our parking in Winchester page has all of it, including the five Park and Walk car parks that are free on Sundays and after 6pm.

The train is the cathedral’s other suggestion. The cathedral is about a ten-minute walk from the station.

The rest of Winchester’s Christmas

  • Christmas lights switch-on, Thursday 19 November, the night before the market opens.
  • Kingsgate Village Christmas lights, Thursday 26 November, 5.30pm to 8pm, from Winchester BID’s 2026 diary.
  • Lantern Parade, Monday 23 November from 5.30pm, from the cathedral through the city and back, from the cathedral’s family activities page.
  • The Gift by Luxmuralis, 14 to 19 December, 6.30pm to 9pm, a light and sound installation inside the cathedral, booked in advance.
  • The Nutshell Christmas Makers Market, 5 and 6 December.
  • Father Christmas Express on the Watercress Line, 12 to 24 December.

Those last four are listed by Visit Winchester.

Frequently asked questions

When is the Winchester Christmas Market 2026?

Friday 20 November to Tuesday 22 December 2026, in the cathedral close. It is open every day of that run.

What time does the Winchester Christmas Market open and close?

10am to 8pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and 10am to 6pm from Sunday through to Thursday.

How much does the Winchester Christmas Market cost?

Nothing. Entry is free and there is no pre-booking. Going inside the cathedral itself is separate and needs an annual pass, which is £1 cheaper booked online.

Is there an ice rink at Winchester Christmas Market?

No. The rink was replaced by a performance stage in 2021 and has not returned, and nothing on the cathedral’s 2026 Christmas pages mentions skating. Listings that still advertise a Winchester Cathedral Ice Rink are out of date.

Can I get the park and ride to the Winchester Christmas Market?

Not on a Sunday. The council’s park and ride runs 6.25am to 7.30pm Monday to Friday and 7am to 6.30pm on Saturdays, with no buses at all on Sundays or public holidays, though the car parks stay free. The cathedral says services are extended during late-night openings, but no Christmas timetable is published on the council’s page.

Sources