Big events in London rarely get much bigger than a Coronation, and huge crowds are expected in the centre of town, so TfL is issuing travel advice for the day long in advance to help people plan their trips.
Transport for London (TfL) has confirmed that there will be no planned closures for engineering works over the Coronation weekend, although some stations will need to have crowd control measures in place in central London during the day itself.
The Night Tube and Overground will be running on Friday and Saturday, so people will be able to get into central London early to grab a favoured spot, although note that there won’t be access to the processional route until 6am, so don’t think of sleeping overnight to get the best spot.
Also, although the rest of London’s rail services will run a full service, the Waterloo & City line, which links Waterloo and Bank stations will be closed over the weekend, as is normal for the line.
In addition to stations in central London being very busy, St James’s Park station will be closed all day and Hyde Park Corner will be exit-only.
In addition, Victoria station will have limited access to Green Park and St James’s Park because of road closures. If you arrive in London at Victoria, you may be directed to the Hyde Park screening site if you want to watch the events, and even if you don’t, you’ll probably end up there anyway because that’s where the crowds will take you.
At the moment, there are no planned travel disruptions to mainline trains in the southeast England area that would prevent people getting into and out of London on 6th May.
A road closure map has been issued that will come into effect from 7pm on the Friday evening, and will remain in place until as soon as practical to reopen after the Coronation has taken place — so likely to be phased openings from late afternoon.
That will naturally affect bus services, and also some cycle lanes in the area may be closed as well. Some cycle hire docking stations in the cordon will also be closed.
Watching the Coronation parade
On the day of the Coronation, there will be a procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey – and back again — with the route being along the Mall to Trafalgar Square, then down Whitehall to Parliament and to Westminster Abbey — and the same back again.
The Coronation service will start at 11am.
Candidly, if you don’t bag a spot exceptionally early on Saturday morning, you might struggle to see anything in person as it’ll be packed. The viewing areas will be open from 6am, and likely be full about 10 seconds later.
Big TV screens
There will be four big screens set up in Hyde Park on the north and south sides of the Serpentine Lake, plus smaller screens in Green Park and St James’s Park.
Most local councils are setting up some form of event in their main parks for the day.
The flypast
There will be a military flypast over Buckingham Palace after the Coronation, with at least 70 aircraft taking part.
The route will see the flypast come in over East London usually lining up around Shoreditch to then fly in a straight line to the Mall and Buckingham Palace, where they will then disperse to fly over other parts of the southeast of England.
The flypast is something that is best from the Mall, but actually, it’s really good from anywhere along the route in East London.
Assuming they participate, the Red Arrows usually turn on their coloured smokes around the City of London area, so you might want to be to the west of the City if you really want to see them in colours. Best from directly underneath, they still look pretty impressive from as much as a mile away either side.
