Mayfair's free lunchtime concerts are a 40-minute organ recital every Tuesday at 1.10pm and, on some Wednesdays, a chamber recital at St George's, Hanover Square. Both ask nothing at the door. A retiring collection is taken as you leave, and the organ series invites a donation of at least £5 if possible.
What most listings miss is that the Tuesday recital moves. The Mayfair Organ Concerts alternate between Grosvenor Chapel on South Audley Street and St George's, so turning up at the wrong church on the wrong week is the easiest mistake to make. Every date below comes from the Mayfair Organ Concerts page and the St George's events page, read on 27 October 2026, and they run to 22 December.
Both churches sit inside Mayfair, W1, in the City of Westminster, and both series are open to anyone. For other things in the area that cost nothing, see our page on free things to do in Mayfair. This page is only about the music. Of all the free things in Mayfair, the free lunchtime concerts are the ones with a printed programme and a start time.
Where to hear free lunchtime concerts in Mayfair
Free lunchtime concerts in Mayfair take place at 2 churches: Grosvenor Chapel, 24 South Audley Street, W1K 2PA, and St George's, Hanover Square, on St George Street. The Tuesday organ recital alternates between them from 1.10pm to 1.50pm. The Wednesday chamber recitals are at St George's only, also from 1.10pm.
The organ series is called the Mayfair Organ Concerts, and Grosvenor Chapel's music page describes it in 4 words: "Tuesdays 1.10 - 1.50". The Wednesday series is listed on the St George's events page as the Hanover Square Lunchtime Concerts, with a soloist and a pianist each time.
St George's describes its own position as lying "between Regent Street and New Bond Street", just off Hanover Square. Its getting-here page names 4 Underground stations: Oxford Circus, Bond Street, Piccadilly Circus and Green Park. Grosvenor Chapel is at the other end of Mayfair, on South Audley Street, closer to Park Lane than to Regent Street. Both are in W1 and nowhere near the same corner of it, which is why the venue matters.
Grosvenor Chapel's music page lists one more regular Tuesday fixture, though not a concert: the Mayfair Community Choir meets there from 6.30pm to 8pm.
The Tuesday organ dates to the end of December
The Grosvenor Chapel page lists the remaining recitals by day and month without a year; every weekday matches 2026. All start at 1.10pm and finish at 1.50pm.
Tuesday 3 November, St George's. Mariusz Kozieł. The St George's page gives his programme: Dupré's Prelude and Fugue in B major, Op. 7 No. 1; Surzyński's Capriccio in F sharp minor, Op. 36; his own Meditation, Op. 1 No. 2; and Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548.
Tuesday 10 November, Grosvenor Chapel. Gill Ross, soprano, with Alastair Ross at the organ, in a Handel programme.
Tuesday 17 November, St George's. Theo Geileskey, of King's College, London.
Tuesday 24 November, Grosvenor Chapel. Benjamin Chewter, of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London.
Tuesday 1 December, St George's. Federico Andreoni, from Montreal.
Tuesday 8 December, Grosvenor Chapel. Freddie James, of the Franziskanerkirche, Lucerne.
Tuesday 15 December. No concert.
Tuesday 22 December, St George's. Richard Gowers, of St George's, Hanover Square.
Only 2 of those recitals had a programme online when we checked: Kozieł's on 3 November and the Handel recital on 10 November. The rest name the organist and the church, nothing more. On 3 November the 2 pages also describe Kozieł differently, St George's giving Pieterskerk, Leiden, and Grosvenor Chapel giving Katowice and Breda, which is a reminder that these pages are kept by hand and are worth reading again on the morning.
The two churches also play different instruments. St George's says its organ was built by Richards, Fowkes and Co of Ooltewah, Tennessee, as their Opus 18, completed towards the end of 2012, and calls it "the first American-built organ in London". Grosvenor Chapel's music page names a William Drake organ.
Why the Tuesday recital is not always at St George's
A common shorthand, one we used ourselves when planning this piece, is that St George's holds free recitals on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. That is only half right.
Mayfair's free Tuesday organ recital alternates between Grosvenor Chapel and St George's, Hanover Square, so the church changes from week to week. Between 3 November and 22 December it has 4 of the 7 Tuesday concerts: 3 November, 17 November, 1 December and 22 December. The other 3 are at Grosvenor Chapel, and 15 December has none at all. Anyone who goes to Hanover Square on 10 November, 24 November or 8 December will find no recital there.
The Wednesday series has its own wrinkle. The St George's page lists 2 Hanover Square Lunchtime Concerts in November, on 4 and 11 November, and none after that so far. It is a dated list, not a weekly promise. The same page also showed the series' 28 October recital, a Beethoven programme for violin and piano, with a start time of 7pm, which does not sit easily with the series name.
Where a time looks wrong, the church office on 020 7629 0874 is the place to ask.
So the reliable rule is narrower than the shorthand. Tuesdays, check which church. Wednesdays, check that there is a concert at all.
Tuesday organ or Wednesday chamber recital
The two series ask different things of a lunch hour, and the published listings show how.
The Tuesday recital is one instrument and one player for 40 minutes, with a soprano joining the organist on 10 November. The 3 November programme is a fair sample: 2 preludes and fugues, a capriccio and a short meditation. It finishes at 1.50pm, which leaves the rest of a lunch hour free.
The Wednesday recital puts a soloist with a pianist. On 4 November that is Joseph Geary, flute, and Issa Diallo, piano, playing Schubert's Introduction and Variations on "Trockne Blumen", D. 802, Rivier's Oiseaux tendres for solo flute, and Julien Beaudiment's arrangement of Ravel's Daphnis and Chloé Suite No. 2. On 11 November the baritone Luca Zuccho and the pianist Lilly Vadaneaux give a song recital, programme to be announced. The church does not publish a finishing time for the Wednesday series.
Both are free, and both take a retiring collection. The difference is in what you hear: the Tuesday series is organ music in 2 churches on 2 different organs, the Wednesday series is chamber music in one.
Evenings at St George's are another matter, and they are ticketed. On Tuesday 3 November at 7pm the London Handel Festival presents "Handel and the New Society" with the Spiritato Ensemble, tickets £15 to £55. On Friday 6 November at 7pm comes the Bachfest Bach Singers Prize Final, £20, with finalists to be announced after 26 October.
A week later, on Tuesday 10 November at 7pm, "A Handel Celebration" brings the mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, The Brook Street Band and the London Handel Players, £25. St George's calls itself home to the annual London Handel Festival. Handel's own house, now Handel Hendrix House, is on Brook Street and opens Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, according to its own site; see our listing for Handel Hendrix House.
What the free lunchtime concerts cost and when the churches open
The free lunchtime concerts in Mayfair cost nothing to enter. Both series state "Admission free - retiring collection", and the Grosvenor Chapel page adds that it takes cash or card and invites a minimum donation of £5 if possible. Neither page mentions booking. St George's is open on weekdays from 8.30am, so arriving early is possible.
The rest of the practical detail, from the churches' own pages:
St George's opening times. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 8.30am to 4pm; Wednesday 8.30am to 6pm; Sunday 8am to 12 noon; closed on Saturday except for weddings and special services.
Clashes at St George's. A short midday prayer is said at 12.10pm on weekdays in the Lady Chapel, and on Thursdays a said Holy Communion begins at 1.10pm, the same time as a concert would. Neither concert series uses Thursday.
Earlier still. On weekdays in university term, St George's runs Morning Calm at 8.45am: a pianist from the Royal College of Music plays for 7 to 10 minutes, then there is a short silence.
Contact. St George's parish office is at The Vestry, 2A Mill Street, W1S 1FX, telephone 020 7629 0874. Grosvenor Chapel is at 24 South Audley Street, W1K 2PA.
Neither page gives walking times between the two churches or from the stations, and neither says whether latecomers are admitted once the music has started. We have not guessed at either. Arriving by 1pm avoids the question.
For Mayfair London readers the decision is a simple one. For organ music at one of the free lunchtime concerts, pick a Tuesday, check the list above for the church, and be there before 1.10pm: 3 November, 17 November, 1 December and 22 December at St George's, Hanover Square; 10 November, 24 November and 8 December at Grosvenor Chapel on South Audley Street.
For a flute or a voice with piano, the Wednesdays to note are 4 and 11 November at St George's. Every one of them is open to anyone, and the only cost is whatever you leave in the collection on the way out, with £5 the figure Grosvenor Chapel suggests.
Main image: Anthony O'Neil, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
