Twenty rooms across the six north London boroughs that say, on their own websites, that they take wakes, funeral receptions or celebrations of life. Arranged by borough, starting where the crematoria are.
Wake venues in north London
North London Venue Guide Wake venues in north London
Every venue on this page states on its own website that it hosts wakes, funeral receptions, memorial gatherings or celebrations of life. Each name links to that website, not to a booking directory, so when you click through you are reading the venue describing itself. The note beside each one comes from the same place.
There are no capacities and no prices here. Both change, both depend on how the room is laid out and on the day of the week, and a figure copied onto this page would be wrong within a season. For a wake the quickest route is a phone call anyway. Most of these venues can tell you in two minutes whether the date is free and what they would suggest.
The list was compiled in October 2026 and every link was checked then. Nobody paid to be on it and nobody was asked. If something has closed or stopped taking bookings, the about page says how to tell us.
How the list is arranged
The crematoria that serve north London sit mostly in its outer boroughs. Four are in Barnet: Golders Green, Hendon, New Southgate, and Islington Crematorium, which despite its name is inside the cemetery at East Finchley. Enfield Crematorium is in Enfield. Highgate Cemetery is in Camden and Abney Park in Hackney.
Families usually want the reception within a short drive of where the funeral ends, so the list starts with Barnet and Enfield, where most of the golf clubs and country-house rooms are, and works inwards to the pubs, chapels and museums of Camden, Islington and Hackney. Where a venue's own site names a nearby crematorium or cemetery, the note says so.
Barnet
| Venue | Area | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Middlesex Golf Club | Whetstone | Golf club | Has a funerals page and says it is close to New Southgate Cemetery and Crematorium |
| The Arkley 9 | Arkley | Golf club | A celebrations of life page covering wakes, memorial gatherings and funeral receptions |
| Old Fold Manor Golf Club | Hadley, High Barnet | Golf club | Holds funeral and memorial receptions in a Grade II listed manor house |
| Stephens House and Gardens | Finchley | Historic house | Grade II listed house that offers celebrations of life following a funeral |
Enfield
| Venue | Area | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enfield Golf Club | Old Park, Enfield | Golf club | Clubhouse team arranges wakes for members and non-members |
| Forty Hall | Forty Hill | Historic house | Grade I listed Jacobean manor house with a wakes and memorials hire option |
| West Lodge Park | Hadley Wood | Hotel | A funerals and wakes page with a downloadable funeral brochure |
| The Walker Ground | Southgate | Cricket ground clubhouse | Says wakes are often arranged at short notice and its staff try to meet requests |
| Hadley Wood Golf Club | Hadley Wood | Golf club | Lists celebration of life events; the clubhouse is a Grade II listed house |
Haringey
| Venue | Area | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Muswell Hill Golf Club | Muswell Hill | Golf club | Hosts celebration of life receptions in its clubhouse |
| Lordship Hub | Lordship Rec, Tottenham | Community centre | Lists funerals among the gatherings its rooms are hired for |
Camden
| Venue | Area | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lauderdale House | Waterlow Park, Highgate | Historic house | Names Highgate Cemetery, Golders Green Crematorium and East Finchley Cemetery as a short distance away |
| Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution | Highgate Village | Historic institution | Has a life celebrations page and lets hirers choose any caterer |
| London Irish Centre | Camden Square | Community centre | Offers its Hub Bar for wakes |
| Conway Hall | Holborn | Hall | Lists memorials among the events it hosts |
Islington
| Venue | Area | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Canonbury | Canonbury | Pub | First-floor Spencer Room with its own bar, offered for celebrations of life |
| London Canal Museum | Battlebridge Basin, King's Cross | Museum | Takes memorial receptions and aims to answer short-notice enquiries quickly |
Hackney
| Venue | Area | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abney Park Chapel | Stoke Newington | Cemetery chapel | Grade II listed, offered for funeral ceremonies and wakes; there is no kitchen |
| Clissold House | Clissold Park, Stoke Newington | Historic house | Grade II listed; the council's venue service lists wakes and memorials among its occasions |
| The Glass House | Springfield Park, Upper Clapton | Park pavilion | Run by the same council venue service, with retractable skylights |
Choosing between a club, a pub, a hall and a house
The four kinds of venue on this page solve different problems.
Golf and cricket clubs do a great deal of this work on the outer edge of north London, and four of the clubs above have a page given over to it. They have car parks, which matters when guests are driving on from a crematorium, and weekday afternoons are usually quiet in a clubhouse. The trade-off is that the building belongs to members. Ask which room is yours and whether the members' bar will be open at the same time.
A pub function room is the easiest thing to book at short notice. The bar, the staff and the kitchen are already there, and pubs that take wakes have a routine for them. The questions are privacy, because some function rooms are reached through the public bar, and money, because a pub usually works on a minimum spend rather than a hire fee. How the money is structured explains the difference.
A historic house or museum suits a smaller, quieter gathering, and the setting does some of the work for you. Expect firmer rules on food, drink, candles and finishing times, and ask early whether the room is on the ground floor.
A community hall gives you the whole room for less money, and in exchange you bring the tea, the food and the clear-down. For a large family that is often the right trade. Community halls covers how those bookings work and why the answer about alcohol is sometimes found in a trust deed rather than a licence.
Before you ring
Have three things ready: the date, the time the service ends, and a rough number of guests. With those a venue can answer in one call. Without them the conversation goes round in circles.
Then ask the questions that matter on the day. Is the room private? Can every guest reach it without a stair, and is there an accessible toilet on the same floor? Will tea be ready when people arrive, or at a set time? Who is the contact on the day, and can the funeral director call them directly? The page on wakes and memorial gatherings goes through each of these in order, and accessibility explains what to check when the guest list includes people who cannot manage steps.
If food is involved, ask whether the venue caters itself, works from a list of caterers, or lets you bring your own. One institution above lets you choose any caterer, the canal museum provides no food of its own, and the cemetery chapel has no kitchen at all. Catering and corkage sets out the three arrangements you will meet.
Ask for the booking to be confirmed by email, with the times, the room, the food and any bar limit written down. It takes a venue five minutes and it means nobody has to remember anything on the day. Hire agreements explains what a longer agreement is allocating, though for a three-hour wake most venues will simply send a confirmation.
If the venue you want is not here
This is not a complete list. Plenty of pubs and halls host wakes without saying so on their websites, and they are no less suitable for that. If a place near the crematorium looks right, ring and ask whether they take funeral receptions. The ones that do will say so at once, and many will mention a daytime rate without being asked.
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