Birkenhead Market has set two free Saturday craft markets, 7 November and 5 December, 10am to 4pm. Port Sunlight and the dockside market have no 2026 date yet.

Birkenhead Market is the first Wirral Christmas market to publish 2026 dates: two free Saturdays, 7 November and 5 December, 10am to 4pm. 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 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.

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 three that actually run

Birkenhead Market, Christmas craft market

2026: Saturday 7 November and Saturday 5 December, 10am to 4pm on both dates, 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). One small inconsistency: the 5 December page’s date box says 10am to 5pm, while the text on the same page says 10am to 4pm on both dates. Plan on 4pm until the market says otherwise.

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.

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: 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.
  • 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.