Two Sutton grottos have 2026 dates: Carshalton Frost Fair on Saturday 5 December and Sutton Mencap on Sunday 6 December. Neither has opened bookings.
Two Santa’s grottos in the London Borough of Sutton already have a 2026 date, and they fall on consecutive days. The Carshalton Frost Fair grotto is on Saturday 5 December and Sutton Mencap’s Santa’s Grotto and Christmas Fair in Wallington is on Sunday 6 December. Neither has opened bookings yet.
That is the whole confirmed picture as at 6 September. Everything else on this page is the annual pattern, labelled as such.
Saturday 5 December: the Frost Fair grotto, Carshalton
The grotto at the Carshalton Frost Fair is run by the Friends of Honeywood Museum, and the fair itself is run by the Carshalton charity EcoLocal. EcoLocal has confirmed the 2026 fair for Saturday 5 December on its own event page and its homepage, after taking 2025 off entirely (EcoLocal, Carshalton Frost Fair 2026).
The grotto detail on that page is still the 2024 version, and EcoLocal says so. At the 2024 fair:
- Tickets were sold from a booth outside Honeywood Museum, which opened at 12 noon, an hour before the fair itself
- £3 a child, with the accompanying adult free
- The fair ran 1pm to 6pm around Carshalton Ponds, Honeywood Walk, Festival Walk and the Memorial Gardens, with free entry
Treat the noon booth opening as the thing to plan around rather than the price. A grotto selling in person on the day, at a fair EcoLocal puts at around 3,000 people, is the sort of thing that runs out mid-afternoon. Our Carshalton Frost Fair page has the rest of the 2024 running order and what has and has not been confirmed for this year.
Sunday 6 December: Sutton Mencap, Wallington
Sutton Mencap has published its Santa’s Grotto and Christmas Fair for Sunday 6 December at 8 Stanley Park Road, Wallington, SM6 0EU, with free entry (Sutton Mencap, Santa’s Grotto and Christmas Fair). Alongside the grotto the charity lists face painting, stalls, crafts, refreshments and a raffle.
The listing carries no time and no grotto price. Sutton Mencap’s own note is that “more details and Grotto bookings coming soon”, so the grotto is bookable rather than walk-up, and the booking has not opened. Stanley Park Road is the charity’s registered office and its day-service base, a short walk from Wallington station.
The garden centre grotto
The only garden-centre grotto in the borough is at the Dobbies store at Woodcote Green in Wallington, which runs a paid, pre-booked grotto every Christmas.
Dobbies had not published its 2026 Woodcote Green dates or prices anywhere we could read them on 6 September, and its Christmas booking pages open later in the autumn. Any date or price you see for Woodcote Green on a listings site at the moment is last year’s, so check it against Dobbies’ own site before you pay. Worth knowing too: the old woodcotegreen.co.uk address no longer works at all, so the store’s former website is not the way in any more.
The sleigh, 1 December to Christmas Eve
The one that comes to you. The Cheam and Sutton Rotary Club’s Santa Sleigh begins its annual fundraising tour on 1 December and, in the club’s own words, “is out nearly every night up to and including Christmas Eve”, visiting streets in Cheam, Sutton and Worcester Park (Cheam and Sutton Rotary, Santa’s Sleigh).
Routes are not published in advance. The club says they go out towards the end of November, on Santa’s own Facebook and Twitter pages and on the Cheam and Sutton Rotary Facebook page. It is free to come out and see, and the volunteers collect for local charities as they go. If you are in Carshalton or Wallington, note that the eastern half of the borough is not on the route.
What is still to be announced
- Frost Fair grotto times and price for 2026. EcoLocal has historically updated its page in the weeks before the fair. Expect November.
- Sutton Mencap’s grotto booking and the fair’s opening time. The charity says these are coming; no date given.
- Dobbies Woodcote Green 2026 dates and price. Not published yet; watch Dobbies’ own Christmas events pages.
- The Rotary sleigh’s routes. End of November, on the club’s social media.
- The town centre switch-on. In 2025 the Sutton Business Improvement District ran a three-day festive weekend on the High Street with a Santa from Sutton and Cheam Rotary. Nothing has been published for 2026: see our Sutton Christmas lights switch-on page for the evidence and the history.
Getting there
Both confirmed dates are at the Carshalton and Wallington end of the borough, and both are easier by train than by car. Honeywood Walk is five minutes from Carshalton station; Stanley Park Road is a walk from Wallington station.
If you do drive to the Frost Fair, the two closest council car parks to Honeywood are Carshalton High Street SM5 3AP and The Square SM5 3BN, and both fill early on fair day. Our parking in Sutton page has the tariffs and free periods car park by car park, and Sutton roadworks and travel carries anything dug up on the approach roads.
The other December fixture worth booking early is the pantomime: see Sutton pantomime for what is on at CryerArts and the dated runs at Epsom and New Wimbledon.
Have your say