Birkenhead Market's free craft markets: Saturday 7 November 10am to 4pm, Saturday 5 December 10am to 5pm. Winter Wonderland's alpine market opens 9 December.

Birkenhead Market is the first Wirral Christmas market to publish 2026 dates: two free Saturdays, 7 November (10am to 4pm) and 5 December (10am to 5pm). Port Sunlight’s festive village market and the dockside market at Egerton House have not published theirs. We check each organiser’s own website, not the listings sites that recycle last year’s copy.

Updated 28 October: West Kirby Grammar School’s free Winter Wonderland market is set for Saturday 21 November, 10am to 3pm. Birkenhead Market’s 5 December listing now gives 10am to 5pm in its text as well as its date box, an hour later than 7 November. Winter Wonderland Wirral has added a Wednesday 9 December quiet session, so its alpine market runs 9 to 13 December.

Updated 30 September: Birkenhead Market has listed its 2026 pre-Christmas craft markets for Saturday 7 November and Saturday 5 December. It is two single Saturdays this year, where 2025 ran across four days.

Updated 7 October: a new ticketed event, Winter Wonderland Wirral, has put an Alpine Market Village of independent traders into Birkenhead Park from 10 to 13 December, £6 plus a £1 booking fee.

The others are normally announced in October or later. 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 markets that actually run

Birkenhead Market, Christmas craft market

2026: Saturday 7 November, 10am to 4pm, and Saturday 5 December, 10am to 5pm, in the covered indoor market, free entry. The market’s own listing calls them “pre-Christmas craft markets” with “craft traders offering unique gifts, handmade treasures and seasonal treats”, free family activities and live music, both still “to be announced” (Birkenhead Market, Christmas Craft Market). The two listings give different finishing times: 4pm on 7 November (Craft Market, 7 November) and 5pm on 5 December, where the date box and the text now agree (both read 28 October).

That is fewer days than last year. In 2025 it was the biggest free market in the borough, and the only one with a grotto attached. 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”.

So far the 2026 listing does not mention a grotto; the free activities are “to be announced”. If a grotto is added we will say so here. Trader pitches are on sale now at £15 for one 2m pitch and £25 for two, which is how the market fills its halls.

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.

West Kirby’s Winter Wonderland

New to this page for 2026: Saturday 21 November, 10am to 3pm, at West Kirby Grammar School, free entry. The school’s own listing promises an indoor Christmas market of “more than 30 traders”, outdoor hot food, a licensed bar, choirs and a Santa’s grotto, and says more than 1,000 people came last year. Visitors are asked to bring one food, grocery or toiletry item each for Wirral Foodbank, and money raised goes to the WKGS School Fund. It is open to everyone, whether or not you have a link to the school (West Kirby Grammar School).

New for 2026: the Alpine Market Village in Birkenhead Park

Not a free market, but the biggest new festive date on the peninsula. Winter Wonderland Wirral runs in Birkenhead Park from Wednesday 9 to Sunday 13 December, the Wednesday billed as a quiet session,, and its ticketing page lists an “Alpine Market Village filled with independent traders” alongside a food village and bar, a light trail, a fairground and a Santa’s grotto. Entry is £6 a person plus a £1 booking fee for one day, under-1s free; the trader list is not published yet (Ticket Tailor, read 28 October).

What it costs to go

Nothing, at the four community markets. Every one listed above is free entry, West Kirby asking only for a foodbank donation, 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: published. 7 November and 5 December, listed by 30 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.
  • West Kirby Grammar School: published. Saturday 21 November.
  • 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. Birkenhead Market’s 2026 listings and Port Sunlight’s event list rechecked on 30 September 2026. We will update this page as each 2026 date is published.