One of south London’s most extraordinary Victorian spaces is getting ready for Christmas. Handmade Palace, a two-day craft market, returns to the Crystal Palace Subway on 21 and 22 November, filling the restored brick-vaulted underpass with stalls from independent makers across south London.
Organised by art gallery and community space The Paxton Centre, the market will feature 46 stalls each day, selling handmade arts and crafts direct from the people who made them. Entry costs £2.50 for visitors aged 16 and over, payable at the door, and the market runs from 10am until 5pm on both days.
For shoppers hunting for one-of-a-kind Christmas gifts, it is a chance to buy from local talent in a setting that is, frankly, half the attraction. The subway’s forest of ornate brick columns and patterned vaulted ceilings has made it one of the most photographed corners of Crystal Palace Park since it reopened.
The subway was built in 1865 to connect rail passengers arriving at the High Level Station with the original Crystal Palace, giving first-class travellers a suitably grand route into the great glass building. It was designed by Charles Barry Jr, and its patterned brickwork was meant to impress from the moment visitors stepped off the train.
When the palace itself was destroyed by fire in 1936, the subway survived as one of the few remaining parts of the site. It went on to serve as an air raid shelter during the Second World War, then closed to the public in 1954 and stayed shut for 70 years.
The Grade II* listed structure — first listed in 1972 and upgraded to Grade II* in 2018 — was brought back to life by a £3.5 million restoration, completed in September 2024. The work, led by Bromley Council with the Friends of Crystal Palace Subway and support from Historic England, won a National Railway Heritage Award, and the subway was formally reopened on 17 September 2024. It is now managed by the Crystal Palace Park Trust.
Since reopening, the subway has hosted open days and events, including the Stand-up at the Subway comedy festival earlier this year, which staged 11 shows across four nights. The Christmas market is its latest outing as a venue — and, for many visitors, a first chance to step inside a space that spent most of living memory behind locked gates.
Handmade Palace runs on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 November, 10am to 5pm, at the Crystal Palace Subway in Crystal Palace Park. Entry is £2.50 for visitors aged 16 and over, payable at the door.
Elsewhere this Christmas, London’s Christmas markets are opening across the capital, and Seven Dials Market in Covent Garden is bringing daily indoor snow from 12 November.
