Two November weekends close the middle of London, and both are now a month away. On Sunday 8 November it is Whitehall, for the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph. On Saturday 14 November it is the City of London, nearly all of it, for the Lord Mayor's Show. I drive through the Square Mile most days of the year, and the Show is the one Saturday I plan around from the moment the date is confirmed. Here is what closes, when it closes, and how I get you in, around and out of it.
What the Lord Mayor's Show actually is
Every year the City elects a new Lord Mayor at Michaelmas, 29 September. This year it is Alderman Bronek Masojada, of the Billingsgate ward, who becomes the 698th Lord Mayor of London and succeeds Dame Susan Langley. He takes office at the Silent Ceremony on Friday 13 November, and the next morning the Show carries him from the City to the Royal Courts of Justice to swear loyalty to the Crown, a tradition the organisers date back to 1215.
It is a big procession: around 6,500 participants, 70 floats and 20 military and civilian bands, and it is free to watch from anywhere on the route. The BBC carries it live on BBC One and iPlayer from 10.45am, and 2026 is a century since the first radio broadcast of the Show in 1926.
The route and the timings
The procession leaves Mansion House at 11am, goes along Cheapside, past St Paul's and down Fleet Street to the Royal Courts of Justice. The return leg comes back along Victoria Embankment and Queen Victoria Street. The leading bands leave Temple Place at about 1.10pm and reach the top of Blackfriars Bridge at about 1.18pm, and the City lists the whole event as running from 11am to 2.30pm. Before any of that, the new Lord Mayor travels down the Thames on the ceremonial barge Jubilant, from Westminster to HMS President, and joins the procession from there.
The stretch between Bank and St Paul's on the outward leg is the busiest part of the day. If that is where you want to stand, you need to be in place by about 10.30. The return along the Embankment is far quieter, and the barrier between Temple and Blackfriars is usually reachable even after 1.15pm. If you are bringing children, that is the side I would steer you towards: more room, and much easier to leave.
The closures cover the whole Square Mile, from early
This is the part that matters if you have anywhere to be that day. The organisers say most roads in the City close from about 7am, the Bank area earlier still, at around 5am, and most reopen around 4pm. The closed area runs from Kingsway across to Bishopsgate, and from the river up to Holborn. London Bridge stays open as normal. Southwark Bridge is open, but from its north end you can only get onto Upper Thames Street or up to Bishopsgate. Blackfriars Bridge is shut all day because, in the organisers' own words, it goes nowhere.
Through traffic is sent round by Old Street or across the river, visitor parking bays in the City are suspended from the Friday afternoon, and Transport for London publishes the bus diversions the week before. One honest caveat: the detail above is the pattern published for last year's Show, and the 2026 map and leaflet are due on the Show's own website, lordmayorsshow.london. I check it the moment it appears, and I will tell you if anything has changed for your booking.
How I plan a Show-day booking
I cannot drop you at Bank on 14 November, and nobody else can either. What I can do is set you down on the open side of the perimeter, on the Holborn side for the outward leg or close to the river for the return, and the last few hundred metres are on foot. I tell you the exact street the day before, once I have the final map, and send it as a pin.
Pickups are the harder half, as they always are on event days. The roads are listed as reopening around 4pm, and in my experience the first half hour after a reopening is slow while the barriers come off and the buses find their routes again. So I would rather agree to collect you at half past four from a street that is genuinely open than promise quarter past three from one that is not. If you want to go for lunch after the procession, that solves the timing on its own: I take you to the restaurant on the edge of the zone, wait, and bring the car to the door once the City is moving again.
Most of my event-day bookings are by the hour for exactly this reason. You can read how by-the-hour hire works, and the minimum is five hours in London, which on a Show day is about right.
If you are not going to the Show at all
Plenty of people will be in the City that Saturday for other reasons: a hotel near St Paul's, a wedding at a livery hall, a flight from Heathrow or City Airport, a lunch in Clerkenwell. If I am collecting you from inside the zone that morning, we agree a time and a meeting point on an open road the evening before, and I build in the walk. If you are flying, I add a proper margin and route round the City rather than through it, by Old Street to the north or over the river to the south. My airport transfers are fixed price and the flight is tracked, so an early start on Show day is one less thing to think about.
If you simply need to cross London that afternoon, tell me, and I will plan a route that never touches the Square Mile.
The weekend before: Remembrance Sunday
The Sunday before the Show is Remembrance Sunday, 8 November, and the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph. Whitehall opens to the public at 8am, the detachments form up from 10.30am, and the service and the two-minute silence are at 11am, marked by guns from Horse Guards Parade. Great George Street is closed to the public, with access between Victoria Street and St James's Park through Storey's Gate. If you have a Sunday morning booking anywhere near Parliament Square, I plan it to stay clear of Whitehall until the early afternoon, and I will ask you to allow a little more time than usual.
The Congestion Charge on a Saturday
The Congestion Charge runs from noon to 6pm at weekends and on bank holidays, and the daily charge is £18. The afternoon of the Show falls inside those hours. It is included in my fixed price, so it is not something you need to think about. I wrote more about it in my guide to the Congestion Charge and ULEZ.
Booking a November Saturday
Tell me the date, where you are starting from, where you want to stand or where you need to be, and roughly when you want to be collected. I will come back with a pickup time, a drop-off point on an open street and a fixed price, confirmed up front. For a family or a group of friends the V-Class is the car, with room for coats and a pushchair; for two of you the S-Class is quieter. You can see the cars I drive before you decide, and there is a calendar of the season on klasschauffeur.events if you are still choosing a weekend. When you have a plan, send me the details and I will take care of the rest.
