The London Concours takes the Honourable Artillery Company gardens from 8 to 10 June 2027, an automotive garden party inside the City.
The Honourable Artillery Company was incorporated by royal charter in 1537 by Henry VIII, which makes it the oldest regiment in the British Army and the second-oldest military unit in the world. Its five-acre garden off City Road is the largest private green space in the City of London, and almost nobody who works around it has ever been inside. The London Concours is staged there each June by Thorough Events, the company behind the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court.
A concours in the City is a different proposition from one at a country house. The cars are drawn up on a lawn inside a ring of office towers, and the people looking at them have walked from a desk rather than driven from a village, so the field is assembled around themed classes that can be read in a lunch hour rather than as one long line-up.
The 2027 concours runs from Tuesday 8 to Thursday 10 June at the Honourable Artillery Company. Restaurants, tailors, watchmakers and jewellers take stands around the lawn alongside the cars. It is the only event of its kind held inside the Square Mile, and the only three days of the year that ground is open to anybody who buys a ticket. The regiment still trains on it the rest of the time.