No Wirral Christmas market has published a 2026 date. Birkenhead Market ran two free weekends last year, Port Sunlight one Sunday, and here is when each is due.

Not one Wirral Christmas market has published a 2026 date. We checked every organiser’s own website on 6 September, not the listings sites that recycle last year’s copy, and every festive date currently in circulation for the borough belongs to 2025.

That is normal rather than alarming. Wirral’s Christmas markets are announced in October. What is useful now is knowing which ones are real, what they cost, and the weekend each tends to land on, so you can hold the date before the stalls sell out.

The three that actually run

Birkenhead Market, Christmas craft market

The biggest free one, and the only one with a grotto attached. In 2025 it ran across two weekends, Friday 28 and Saturday 29 November, then Friday 5 and Saturday 6 December, 10am to 4pm each day, in the covered indoor market.

Everything about it was free: entry, face painting, a craft station for making a Christmas decoration, and a Santa’s grotto from 1pm to 3pm with a free gift. The market said it had run two earlier craft markets with “over 80 incredible traders and thousands of visitors”.

Its 2026 listing is not up. Birkenhead Market’s what’s on page today carries only Recovery Fest 26 and an indoor car boot on 26 September, and the 2025 Christmas craft market page has been taken down, though it was still live in April.

Birkenhead Market is run by Wirral Council from the market office in the Grange precinct. Enquiries go to birkenheadmarket@wirral.gov.uk or 0151 666 3194.

Port Sunlight village market, Christmas edition

Port Sunlight Village Trust runs a monthly village market and gives December a festive edition. Its listing is 7 December, 9am to 4pm, at The Stables adjacent to the Gladstone Theatre on Gladstone Hall Road, CH62 4XB, free entry, with dozens of artisan stalls selling fresh produce, meats, cheeses, baked goods, gifts and crafts.

Read that one carefully. The listing is still live and carries no year, but its own web address ends “december-2025”, and 7 December 2026 is a Monday, not a market day. It is last year’s page. Treat it as the shape of the event and wait for the 2026 date.

What Port Sunlight has confirmed for this autumn is the Sugar & Spice Festival: Autumn Edition, Saturday 3 October 2026, 11am to 4pm, on The Diamond opposite Port Sunlight Museum and the Village Green, free to explore, with “over 40 stalls filled with locally-made food, drink and little luxuries”. If you want a market feel before the Christmas dates land, that is the one in the diary.

Port Sunlight station is a few minutes away on Merseyrail and the trust warns that parking is limited to the surrounding streets.

The dockside market at Egerton House

The newest of the three and the only one on the water. KC Artisan ran it on Sunday 14 December 2025, 11am to 5pm, at the Dockside at Egerton House on Tower Road, Birkenhead, a restored 1874 banana warehouse looking across the Mersey to the Liverpool skyline.

Free entry, dozens of hand-picked artisan stalls, street food traders, a licensed bar with mulled wine and cocktails, and acoustic music through the afternoon. Parking is on site and Hamilton Square station is a five-minute walk. Reported by Birkenhead News on 10 December 2025.

What it costs to go

Nothing, at all three. Every Wirral Christmas market listed above charged free entry last year, which puts them in a different category from the ticketed city markets across the water. Budget for the stalls and the bar, not the door.

When the 2026 dates should appear

On last year’s timings:

  • Birkenhead Market: the craft market listing went up by mid-August 2025 for a late November opening. Nothing yet this year, so watch the market’s events page through September.
  • Port Sunlight: the village market runs monthly, so the December edition usually appears once the autumn programme is out. The October festival is already listed.
  • Dockside at Egerton House: announced only days ahead last year. Do not expect much notice.

Getting there and parking

All three sit close to a station, which matters on a Saturday in December. Birkenhead Market is in the town centre near Birkenhead Central and Conway Park, the dockside market is a short walk from Hamilton Square, and Port Sunlight has its own station.

If you are driving, town centre tariffs and the free-parking rules are on our parking in Wirral page, and anything closing a road that weekend will be on Wirral roadworks and travel.

If it is the grotto you are after rather than the stalls, we have checked every option in the borough on our Wirral Santa’s grotto page, including one long-running favourite that has closed for good. The lights are covered on Wirral Christmas lights switch-on.

Sources checked on 6 September 2026: birkenheadmarket.co.uk, portsunlightvillage.com, the archived Birkenhead Market Christmas craft market listing, and Birkenhead News of 10 December 2025. We will update this page as each 2026 date is published.