Four things in London happen on the first Sunday of the month and on no other day, or happen then in a way they do not happen on the other Sundays. A 1928 airport terminal in Croydon opens its doors; a Victorian classroom in Bow holds a lesson; a Southwark museum runs a Victorian testing machine; and a medieval farmyard in Ruislip holds a market by a duck pond. That is the honest list, and the rest of this page is how to use it, plus the near-misses that send people to a locked door.
The first Sunday is not a scheme, a festival or a coordinated open-doors day. There is no London-wide first-Sunday scheme of the kind that exists in some European cities, and there never has been. What there is instead is a handful of volunteer-run places whose rota happens to land on that date, and the whole value of knowing about it is that two of the four cannot be seen on any other day of the year.
For what the rest of a London Sunday is like, the markets, the transport and the closures, see a Sunday in London.
What opens on the first Sunday
- Croydon Airport Visitor Centre
- Airport House, Purley Way, CR0 0XZ. First Sunday only, guided tour, £11 adult and £2.50 child pre-booked
- Ragged School Museum
- Copperfield Road, E3. Victorian lesson in the original classroom, tickets from the desk on the day
- Kirkaldy Testing Museum
- 99 Southwark Street, SE1. Tour at 13:30, £23, with the machine running
- Manor Farm, Ruislip
- Duck pond market in the grounds, 10:00 to 15:00, first and third Sundays
- Not the first Sunday
- Markfield Beam Engine steams on the second and fourth; Severndroog Castle opens every Sunday
Croydon Airport, which has no other opening day at all
This is the one to plan a month around, because the building has no other public opening day of any kind. Airport House on Purley Way is the surviving terminal and control tower of the airport that served London until 1959, and the Visitor Centre inside it is reachable only on a guided tour on one Sunday in four or five weeks. The history is set out in our Croydon guide, along with the trams that get you around the borough once you are there and the rest of what the trams reach in London's tram network.
The practicalities are what decide whether you get in. Tours run for about an hour, followed by up to half an hour looking round on your own. Group size is about twelve. Tickets appear roughly four weeks before each opening. Prices are £11 for a pre-booked adult and £2.50 for a child, £11 on the day if anything is left, and £10 for a pass covering a year. Arrive ten minutes early.
The arithmetic to take away from that paragraph: twelve places, once a month, released a month ahead. Anyone hoping to turn up is planning a wasted journey to an industrial estate, and there is nothing else on Purley Way to salvage the afternoon with.
Photo: YoavR · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
The Victorian lesson at the Ragged School Museum
The Ragged School Museum in Bow is free on any open day. What the first Sunday adds is a 45-minute lesson in its reconstructed Victorian classroom, performed in character by an actor in period dress, and that is the only date it happens.
Two mechanics govern it, and both work against a casual visitor. The classroom seats a fixed number, and there is no advance sale: a lesson ticket is handed out at the front desk on the morning, in the order people arrive. The sittings are also over before lunch. So the plan is to be at the door when it opens, take the ticket first, and look at the rest of the building while you wait, rather than exploring and then asking.
Two of these four cannot be booked from home, and two cannot be visited without booking. Croydon Airport and Kirkaldy need tickets bought in advance; the Ragged School lesson and the Ruislip market do not sell any. Getting that the wrong way round is the commonest way a first Sunday goes wrong.
Kirkaldy's testing machine, at 13:30
The Kirkaldy Testing Museum at 99 Southwark Street holds David Kirkaldy's 1865 testing machine, built to pull materials apart and still able to do it. Three tours run each month. The first-Sunday one starts at 13:30 and costs £23, matching the tour on the fourth Saturday; a shorter third-Saturday tour at 14:00 costs £15. Two months break the pattern: December drops the fourth-Saturday tour and September drops the third-Saturday one.
The £23 buys the machine being run, which is the point. The charity now trades as Kirkaldy's Testing Works, and the older website still carries the full tour calendar, which is worth knowing if a search sends you to one rather than the other.
The one first Sunday that is free and outdoors
Hillingdon Council holds a duck pond market in the grounds of Manor Farm, Ruislip, on the first and third Sunday of each month, from 10:00 to 15:00. Entry costs nothing, and the reason to go is not the market: the same 22-acre site holds the Great Barn, an aisled timber barn of about 1300 that Historic England lists at Grade II* and describes as probably the earliest surviving timber-framed building in Greater London.
It is Zone 6 on the Metropolitan line and about 35 minutes from Baker Street, which is a long way for a market and a short way for a building of that age. The whole area, including the Battle of Britain Bunker, is covered in our guide to Uxbridge and Ruislip.
Can you do two of them in one day?
Two of the four, yes. The Ragged School lesson finishes before lunch in Bow, and the Kirkaldy tour starts at 13:30 in Southwark, and TfL's journey planner puts Mile End to Southwark at about half an hour on a Sunday morning. That is the pairing, and it is a genuinely good day: a Victorian classroom in the morning and a Victorian machine in the afternoon, both explained by people who care about them.
The other combinations do not work. Croydon is an hour from the centre in one direction and Ruislip is 35 minutes in the other, and both are timed events with fixed slots. Pick one of those two and treat it as the day.
| First-Sunday plan | Where | Cost for one adult |
|---|---|---|
| Ragged School lesson, then Kirkaldy at 13:30 | Bow and Southwark, Zones 1-2 | £23 plus the £8.90 fare cap |
| Croydon Airport tour, pre-booked | Croydon | £11 plus fares |
| Manor Farm market and the Great Barn | Ruislip, Zone 6 | Free plus the Zone 1-6 cap of £16.30 |
| Croydon Airport with a child | Croydon | £13.50 for an adult and a child |
The near-misses, which is where people go wrong
Half the value of a page like this is the list of things that are not on the first Sunday, because they are the ones people arrive for.
- Markfield Beam Engine, Tottenham. The second and fourth Sunday of most months, not the first. Free, Markfield Park, N15 4RB, open 10:00 to 15:30, with the 1886 engine running at 12:30 and 14:30, and steam on most bank holiday Mondays. Ten minutes' walk from Tottenham Hale.
- Severndroog Castle, Oxleas Wood. Every Sunday, not monthly: the viewing platform and galleries open 10:00 to 15:00 with last entry at 14:45, at £5.00 for an adult, £3.50 for a child aged 5 to 15 and £12.50 for a family. The platform holds ten people at a time.
- Wandle Industrial Museum, Mitcham. Wednesdays 13:00 to 16:00 and Sundays 14:00 to 17:00, free, but closed on bank holiday weekends. Its neighbourhood is Mitcham and Morden.
- Crossness Pumping Station. Named dates rather than a monthly rota, and the engine runs on only some of them, which is not the same thing as an open day.
- Guildhall. Monthly guided tours at £15, but on Court of Common Council days, which are weekdays, with none at all in August or November.
- St Paul's Cathedral. Its Dome Sundays ticket at £13.50 runs on Sundays generally, not first Sundays, and ordinary sightseeing is Monday to Saturday only.
The Crystal Palace Subway is the other one worth a warning. The restored Victorian subway under Crystal Palace Parade does open to the public, but on individual open days announced by the park's trust rather than on any monthly pattern, and there is no standing first-Sunday arrangement to rely on.
How to check before you travel
Three habits, because everything on this page is run by small organisations whose rotas change.
Read the date, not the pattern. A site that says "first Sunday of the month" often has exceptions buried in a calendar further down: no tour in December, closed in August, a summer season only. Kirkaldy publishes two such exceptions.
Telephone if the lesson or the tour is the reason you are going. Where tickets are not sold in advance, the staff on the Friday will tell you what time to arrive, and that saves the whole trip.
Check the Tube before a Sunday journey across London. Sunday is when engineering work happens: the journey planner's suggested route between Bow and Southwark for one Sunday in October 2026 involved a replacement bus. The fare cap protects the cost but not the time.
For the free things that need no timing at all, see free things to do in London; for the other small museums with awkward opening days, London's best small museums; and for the once-a-year version of the same idea, the Open House Festival in September, which opens hundreds of buildings that are shut for the other 51 weekends. If your first Sunday is followed by a bank holiday, a London bank holiday Monday behaves differently again.
Frequently asked questions
Are London museums free on the first Sunday of the month?
No. There is no first-Sunday free-admission scheme in London of the kind some European cities run. The national museums and galleries are free every day of the year instead, and the places that are special on a first Sunday are small ones that charge for a tour.
What can you only see in London on the first Sunday of the month?
Croydon Airport's 1928 terminal and control tower, which has no other public opening day, and the Ragged School Museum's Victorian lesson in its original classroom. The Kirkaldy Testing Museum runs its machine on the first Sunday too, though it also runs tours on two Saturdays.
How much is the Croydon Airport Visitor Centre?
£11 for a pre-booked adult and £2.50 for a child, or £11 on the day subject to availability, with an annual pass at £10. Entry is by guided tour only, groups are about twelve people, and tickets go on sale roughly four weeks before each first-Sunday opening.
Do I need to book the Ragged School Museum's Victorian lesson?
You cannot. Lesson tickets are collected at the desk on the day, first come, first served, and the classroom holds a fixed number. The sittings are before lunch, so arrive at opening rather than at midday and look round the other floors while you wait.
Which London museum steams its engine on a Sunday?
Markfield Beam Engine in Tottenham runs its 1886 engine at 12:30 and 14:30, free of charge, on the second and fourth Sunday of most months and on many bank holiday Mondays. It is not a first-Sunday opening, which is the mistake people make.
Sources
- London Borough of Hillingdon - Manor Farm, Ruislip, including the duck pond market Sundays (checked September 2026)
- Historic England - Great Barn to west of Manor Farm Yard, Ruislip, list entry 1358359, Grade II* (checked September 2026)
- Markfield Beam Engine and Museum - open days, steaming times and admission (checked September 2026)
- Severndroog Castle - plan your visit, opening times and admission (checked September 2026)
- Wandle Industrial Museum - opening times and admission (checked September 2026)
- St Paul's Cathedral - ticket types and prices (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - daily and weekly capping (checked September 2026)