How to hear Union Chapel, the big London room that plays small

Tom Rush is 85. On Sunday 1 November 2026 he played Union Chapel in Islington solo, in a building Historic England records as designed to seat 1,600, and Liz Thomson of The Arts Desk gave him five stars, calling him able to "reduce a vast concert space to the size of your living room". A week after that review the same site gave the same room another five, this time to Joan as Police Woman, whose set opened with her debut album Real Life, all of it, twenty years after it came out. Kathryn Reilly called the place "the magical setting of Islington's gorgeous, cavernous Union Chapel" and noted distant fireworks: it was Bonfire Night weekend, and listings on Ents24 put the two Joan as Police Woman nights on Thursday 5 and Friday 6 November, the review being of the Friday.

Two critics, two nights, one verdict: a very large Victorian church that behaves like a small one. Neither of them wrote a word about acoustics, and we will come back to that. What both noticed was the crowd. Reilly found hers mellow and slightly reverential, and reports that Joan Wasser ended the night by thanking the pews "for really listening". Thomson's audience, which included the producer Joe Boyd, called out requests. Reilly's companion, for the record, judged Jeremy Gustin the gentlest drummer in all Christendom, which is the kind of drummer this room rewards.

So this is a guide to going. Nobody from Sonic Paths has sat in these pews yet: everything below comes from the chapel's own pages, Historic England and those two reviews, read on 9 November 2026.

The address is 19b Compton Terrace, London N1 2UN, at the top end of Upper Street near Highbury Fields. Highbury & Islington station is about 200 metres away, on the Victoria line, the London Overground and mainline trains. The chapel has no parking of its own. Single yellow lines nearby are free to anyone from 6.30pm, except on Arsenal home match days, which are not rare.

The front doors have three stone steps. Staff can have a ramp ready, there is a second entrance at ground level, and the chapel advises electric wheelchair users to use the rear entrance. Wheelchair spaces are limited and booked online through Gigantic, like other tickets, using a Nimbus access card; accessible tickets are sold in pairs at half price, so the companion place is effectively free. There is an induction loop (tell the venue beforehand), and an accessible toilet on the ground floor, reached from the right-hand side of the stage. Only the Overground platforms at Highbury & Islington are wheelchair accessible. If you cannot stand in a queue, ring ahead for priority entry: 020 7226 1686, weekdays nine to five.

From the chapel's own listings on 9 November, and without any check on what has sold out: The Slow Show on Tuesday 10 November, Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes on the 17th, DakhaBrakha on the 23rd, Lambchop for two nights on 27 and 28 November, then Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn on the 29th and 30th. December has Billie Marten on the 11th, The Unthanks twice on Saturday 19th (a matinee, and an evening show with doors at 7.15pm) and Kate Rusby twice on Tuesday 22nd. Jake Bugg takes three nights from 25 to 27 February.

The cheapest way in is Carols by Candlelight on Sunday 20 December: free to book, a £10 donation encouraged, doors and bar at 6pm, service from 7pm to 8.30pm, and booked ticket holders must arrive by 6.30pm for guaranteed entry. It is a church service, with the nativity told in spoken word and prayer. Go on those terms.

One thing that has moved. Daylight Music, the pay-what-you-can lunchtime series, does not appear on Union Chapel's listings for the winter. Its organiser, Arctic Circle, is selling its Saturday 5 December edition at St John's in Leytonstone, noon to 2pm, with £12 a head suggested. We could not confirm any Daylight Music date at Compton Terrace this winter, so do not turn up on a Saturday expecting one.

If the chapel suits you, the atlas has two more rooms where a building made for worship or ceremony does the work a PA usually does: Durham Cathedral, and the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich. For a louder London night, KOKO in Camden is in the atlas too.