125th Birthday Party

At this free celebration, you’ll find activities in every corner of the Gardens.

Our next ticket drops will be on 1 June. Don’t miss out – tickets going fast! If you can’t make it on Saturday join us at our bumper 125 market with 50+ traders, bouncy castles and more on Sunday 28^th June.

Music

Sunken Garden DJ

DJ, broadcaster and curator Rohan Rakhit is known for expansive, genre-spanning sets rooted in soulful music, global sounds and deep digging. Drawing from his work across radio, festivals and nightlife, he brings a warm, dynamic energy to the beautiful Sunken Gardens.

BCO Street Band

Enjoy an eclectic mix of music from New Orleans swing to drum and bass to pop from the BCO Street Band as they wander through the gardens.

Bandstand Stage

Live music from local musicians.

Songs and Stories

Join Beanstalk Arts for musical storytelling for under 5s.

Arts and crafts

Giant Sun Print

Create a paper shape to add to a gigantic artwork. At the end of the party, we’ll use the power of the sun to print those silhouettes onto a banner to make a giant cyanotype print.

Tree Shadow Tracing

Enjoy a quieter moment of colouring in. Can we trace in the entire shadow of a tree by the end of the day?

Family craft corner

Get ready for the party of the year by making your very own birthday hat.

Hedgehog highway sign making

One of the best ways to encourage hedgehogs to visit a new area is to cut holes in fences. We have our own series of fence holes between the Nature Trail and the Gardens, but no sightings of any spiky friends yet. Help us encourage them to pop in by making tiny signs for our Hedgehog highway.

Oops (Almost Right)

Inspired by the Horniman’s famously overstuffed walrus, you’ll explore how misunderstandings, guesses, and imperfections can be used to make sense of the world by creating your own artwork.

Activities

Smallympics

One trolley, two umpires and classic eccentric games for all.

With leader boards, world records, medals, trophies and ‘hard but fair’ rule enforcement. A mixture of show, walkabout, installation, and a sports day with twists, all-comers welcome. Watch, take part, cheer on.

Object handling in the Hands on Base

Explore some of the thousands of real museum objects in our Handling Collection by touching, wearing and discovering them for yourself.

Grasslands Grace

Horniman Grassland gardens. You’ll discover handmade insects hidden inside existing grass bundles, while younger audiences create bug headwear, encouraging playful reflection on biodiversity, overlooked ecosystems, and coexistence through, discovery and play.

‘Horniman Future’ Station

What will the Horniman be like in 125 years’ time? Help shape the near future at our interactive insights station.

Resonance of Breathing

The oak tree at the Bandstand Terrace has been breathing there for 300 years. But its breath is growing quieter. The team from the Royal College of Arts has created a way for you to breathe with it, carrying its breath into a digital space, now, and into the future.

Future Garden Guardians: Horniman 2151

It’s 2125. Summers are hot and dry. Winters bring heavy rain and sudden flash floods. The Horniman Garden’s need your help! Become a Garden’s Guardian and let your imagination run wild. Should we build dams, bat towers or bee hotels? Design the future you’d like to see with the team from the Royal College of Arts.

Horniman history

Look back over 125 years of the Horniman with a timeline of posters from across the last century.

Memory map

Add your memories of visits to the Horniman to our big map.

Bouncy castles

Please note this activity has an additional fee.

Bee Buddies

Come and meet our Bee Buddies in the Sunken Gardens between one and three. They’ll point out interesting plants, insects and other pollinators and may have some bee-friendly seeds to give away!

Tours and Trails

See the Museum and Gardens from new and surprising perspectives with tours from experts or set off to explore with self-led paper or phone-based trails.

Unseen Orchestra

Hidden within the gardens, unseen creatures are waiting to be heard. You’ll meet them, collect their sounds, and build a micro-orchestra in this playful scavenger hunt created by the team from the Royal College of Arts.

Project Coral Lab Tour

Dive behind the scenes of Project Coral, the Horniman Aquarium’s pioneering research lab. See our coral spawning systems and hear from aquarium staff how we became the first place in the world to spawn corals in an aquarium.

Animals Everywhere

Start playing the Animals Everywhere! trail and meet a cast of 3D animated animals hiding across the Gardens. It’s free to play, no downloads, adverts or hidden purchases – it opens straight in your browser.

Expect challenges and mini games to play along the way. You’ll feed a walrus, grow sunflowers to attract bees and meet a velociraptor. See if you can make it to the top of the leaderboard and collect badges as you go. Will you be able to find all the animals?

Food and drink

• You’ll have your pick from some of London’s best street food stalls serving up irresistible flavours.
• The Colicci Kiosk will have sandwiches, snacks and a wide selection of hot and cold drinks.
• Refresh at the Colicci bar with cocktails, mocktails, draft beers, and a wide range of soft drinks.
• The new Garden Cafe will be serving sourdough pizzas, ice cream and coffee.