Dulwich has no rink of its own. Streatham's Olympic-size ice skates all year; the Peckham rooftop and Beckenham Winter Gardens rinks have no 2026 dates yet.

There is no ice rink in Dulwich. The three places people from SE21 and SE22 actually skate are Streatham Ice Rink, which is open all year, a rooftop rink on the Bussey Building in Peckham, and the Winter Gardens in Beckenham Place Park. The two seasonal rinks both ran from mid-November to early January last winter. Neither has announced a 2026 season yet, and we checked both organisers’ own sites on 12 October.

The quick answer

  • Skate this week: Streatham Ice Rink, 390 Streatham High Road SW16, runs 60-minute public sessions seven days a week on an Olympic-size rink.
  • Peckham’s rooftop rink: opened in November 2025 on the Bussey Building roof, 133 Rye Lane. It was a synthetic rink, not real ice. No 2026 dates yet.
  • Beckenham Place Park: the Winter Gardens ran from 15 November 2025 to 4 January 2026 with Lewisham’s first covered ice rink. No 2026 announcement yet.
  • Christmas show: Streatham’s skating clubs put on a Christmas ice show; last year’s was Saturday 13 December. The 2026 date is not published.

Streatham Ice Rink: open all year

The nearest real ice to Dulwich is in Streatham Ice and Leisure Centre, 390 Streatham High Road, SW16 6HX, run by Active Lambeth. It is a full Olympic-size rink, 60m by 30m, and Active Lambeth says it has been a skating venue for more than 80 years (Active Lambeth: ice skating).

  • Public sessions run “all throughout the day, 7 days a week”. Every session lasts 60 minutes, and the centre advises booking online in advance.
  • Skate hire goes from child size 7 to adult size 15. There are penguin skating aids for children under 1.2m and snowman aids for taller children. At busy times you may have to wait for one.
  • Trousers are compulsory. The centre recommends long sleeves, a padded jacket and gloves, to keep warm and to protect your hands if you fall.
  • Children under 8 must be with an adult who is skating. Carers of registered disabled skaters skate free, with proof.

Active Lambeth does not print its standard public session price on its ice skating or prices pages. For a sense of the cost, its special May bank holiday skate this year was £10 for adults and £8 for children with skate hire included, booked online, and it sat outside normal public hours (Active Lambeth: Bank Holiday Skate). Most activity prices rose by 4.8% on 1 April 2026 (Active Lambeth).

Streatham’s Christmas ice show

Streatham’s dance and figure skating clubs and its Learn to Skate pupils put on a Christmas show each December. Last year’s, Christmas Rewind: 2000’s Edition, was on Saturday 13 December 2025, 6pm to 8pm. Tickets were £15.45 adult, £12.35 child, £10.30 OAP or concession, £46.25 for a family of two adults and two children and £5.15 for under-5s, sold at the centre and online (Active Lambeth). Active Lambeth announced that show on 7 November, so expect the 2026 date around early November. We will add it here.

Peckham: the Bussey Building rooftop rink

Last winter the Bussey Rooftop Bar, on top of the Bussey Building at 133 Rye Lane, SE15, turned its roof into what it called “London’s highest skate rink”. Its own homepage in late November 2025 describes “a brand new state-of-the-art synthetic skate rink”, so this was synthetic ice, not frozen water, with a covered, heated après-skate bar alongside. DJs played Friday and Saturday “Skate Jam” nights, with themed jams on 29 November and 19 December (Bussey Rooftop Bar homepage, archived 24 November 2025).

The bar’s FAQs set the house rules that matter for families: under-18s are welcome only with an adult and must leave by 7pm, when the bar becomes 18+ and asks anyone who looks under 25 for ID. The bar is reached through Bussey Alley, off Rye Lane, by stairs or a service lift, and its current FAQs say it is not wheelchair accessible.

Is it back for 2026? Not announced. On 12 October the bar’s own website lists its autumn events with no mention of skating, and last year’s rink page now redirects to the homepage. Listings sites printed 17 November 2025 to 1 January 2026 as last season’s run and several different ticket prices; the bar’s own pages that we could read confirm neither, so we are not repeating them.

Beckenham Place Park: the Winter Gardens

Lewisham Council backed a new winter festival in Beckenham Place Park last year, The Winter Gardens, from Saturday 15 November 2025 to Sunday 4 January 2026. Its centrepiece was what the council called Lewisham’s first all-weather ice rink, a covered rink with themed sessions including retro nights and family skates. Entry to the site was free, with skating and some other activities ticketed. Alongside it were a funfair, a Christmas market, a circus, crazy golf and a Santa’s grotto (Lewisham Council).

Is it back for 2026? Not announced. The organiser’s site, visitwintergardens.co.uk, still carries only a holding page and a newsletter sign-up, and the council has published nothing about a second year.

Which one to pick

Streatham Ice Rink Bussey rooftop, Peckham Winter Gardens, Beckenham
Surface Real ice, Olympic size Synthetic (2025) Covered ice rink (2025)
Season All year Nov 2025 to Jan 2026; 2026 TBC 15 Nov 2025 to 4 Jan 2026; 2026 TBC
Ages All; under-8s with a skating adult Under-18s with an adult, out by 7pm All ages
Best for Learning, regular skating, the Christmas show A drink with a view after a skate A full day out with a funfair and market

Getting there

Streatham Ice and Leisure Centre has its own car park. The Bussey Building is next to Peckham Rye station, which the bar notes is served by the Overground and National Rail. If you are driving within Dulwich first, our parking in Dulwich page has the zone hours, and the roadworks and travel page has this week’s closures and bus diversions, including the Peckham Rye resurfacing.

For everything else on this winter, see our pages on the Dulwich Park Santa’s grotto, the Dulwich Christmas markets and the Peckham panto. This page will be updated as soon as either seasonal rink announces its 2026 dates.

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