Please see below for a list of our upcoming events, and some recent events.
Click on any event to see more details about it.
To see all events of a given type (e.g. Monthly Meetings), you can select these from the Events menu at the top of the page.
Forthcoming events
UK democracy: Reforming the House of Lords
Mon 14 Apr 2025
10:00am - 12:00pm
There is general agreement that reform of the House of Lords is urgently needed – but little consensus on what the reforms should be, or even on the Lords’ purpose. […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 12 May 2025
10:00am - 12:00pm
Harrods has been in the headlines recently for unfortunate reasons. However, as Londoners, many of us will have personally enjoyed visiting and perhaps shopping in this magnificent and historic department […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 9 Jun 2025
10:00am - 12:00pm
Caroline Broome (three times winner of Best Small Back Garden trophy in the London Gardens Society Awards) takes a look at some of England's finest gardens to see how their […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 14 Jul 2025
10:00am - 12:00pm
Speaker: Speaker: Vicky Cox (CEO, Supreme Court). Further details to follow.
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Previous events
Hard times: Social realism in British art
Mon 10 Mar 2025
10:00am - 12:00pm
In the 1840s and 1850s, a period of economic slump, poverty and famine, painters began drawing attention to the conditions of working-class life in Britain. By the 1870s and 1880s, […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 10 Feb 2025
10:00am - 12:00pm
Using a helicopter from 08:00 to sunset, and rapid response cars at night or in adverse weather situations, London’s Air Ambulance is the charity that brings the hospital to the […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 13 Jan 2025
10:00am - 12:00pm
On 20 January 2025, Donald J Trump will be inaugurated as President of the United States for the second time. Dire predictions have been coming fast and furious since his […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Further Away Day visit to Canterbury
Sat 14 Dec 2024
10:10am
There are still places on the Further Away Day trip to Canterbury on Saturday 14 December. This should be a very enjoyable day. The programme is: Please find further information […]
Cost: £15.50 cathedral entrance plus train fare to Canterbury
Booking Required
Tue 10 Dec 2024
12:30pm
Are you interested in our new-look festive lunch? This year it has not been possible to organise our traditional festive lunch with catering and service done by members, but we […]
Booking Required
Credit: Simon Inglis/Historic England
Mon 11 Nov 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Sports and games have always been played in London. For the Tudors, it was tennis at Hampton Court and jousting at Whitehall. The Victorians established a network of sports clubs across the […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Credit: Forest51690CWikimedia Commons
George Gershwin: Music in the heart of noise
Mon 14 Oct 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
February 2024 marked the centenary of Rhapsody in Blue, the work that earned George Gershwin (1898–1937) the title of ‘the man who made an honest woman out of jazz’. In […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 14 Oct 2024
10:30am - 1:00pm
Our Annual General Meeting was held in person at St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, Victoria Avenue, London N3 1BD. Details and papers were circulated in advance to NLU3A members. AGM […]
Further Away Day to Waltham Abbey and river cruise
Sat 21 Sep 2024
On Saturday 21 September, Further Away Days are offering a River Lea cruise plus a visit to Waltham Abbey and its busy Saturday market. The coach will be leaving East […]
Cost: £54
Booking Required
Mon 16 Sep 2024
10:00am - 11:30am
We will be holding our annual Open Morning on Monday 16 September at St Margaret's United Reformed Church in Victoria Avenue, Finchley N3 1BD from 10.00-11.30am . Many of our Group Coordinators […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
© Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University
From flocks to florals: An illustrated history of wallpaper
Mon 9 Sep 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Often dismissed as ephemera, wallpaper is in fact a crucial contributor to the history of design. The growth of the wallpaper industry encompasses fashion, taste, society, technology – and the […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Bayeux Tapestry Museum/Wikimedia Commons
The life and times of Edward the Confessor
Mon 8 Jul 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Born in around 1001, Edward the Confessor – England’s penultimate Anglo-Saxon king – also had French heritage: William the Conqueror was a cousin. In this talk, historian Eleanor Levy will […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Summer Tea Party to celebrate North London U3A’s 30th birthday
Mon 1 Jul 2024
2:30pm - 4:30pm
Members are invited to book their place at the NLU3A Summer Tea Party to be held from 2.30pm to 4.30pm at Muswell Hill Methodist Church, 28 Pages Lane, N10 1PP.The […]
Venue: Muswell Hill Methodist Church, N10 1PP
Wikimedia Commons
Mon 10 Jun 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Anyone who has seen Fiddler on the Roof will have a vivid idea of the shtetl, where the story takes place. On the one hand, the shtetl is remembered sentimentally and with a nostalgic […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Credit: Len Williams/Wikimedia Commons
Mon 3 Jun 2024
9:30am
This Further Away Day outing is on Monday 3 June, when we will visit the Cliveden estate and Cookham village in Berkshire. We will travel by coach, leaving East Finchley […]
Cost: The cost for NLU3A members will be £26 for those who are also members of the National Trust, or £44.50 for those who are not NT members.
Booking Required
Polesden Lacey House and Gardens
Fri 24 May 2024
9:30am
Our planned Further Away Day trip to Polesden Lacey on 8 March unfortunately had to be cancelled at the last minute due to snow. We have now managed to re-book […]
Cost: £42.00 (U3A members)/£45.00 (non-U3A members) National Trust members pay less: £28.00 (U3A members)/£31.00 (non-U3A members)
Booking Required
Where do novelists get their ideas from?
Mon 13 May 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Have you ever wondered where fiction writers get their ideas from? In this entertaining and informative talk, Bobbie Darbyshire will explain how the complex world of character, location, plot and […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 22 Apr 2024
On Monday 22 April we will be visiting the Wimpole Hall Estate in Cambridgeshire, a magnificent neo-classical mansion built in the 1640s. The house was remodelled several times in the […]
Photo Diana Clements
Beneath our feet: the geology of London
Mon 15 Apr 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
We rarely stop to think about the rocks beneath the places where we live and walk, but the science of geology can tell fascinating stories about them – from the […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
National Portrait Gallery/Wikimedia Commons
The life and times of Samuel Pepys
Mon 11 Mar 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Samuel Pepys lived in turbulent times – witnessing the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. The lively and honest way in which he […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Alien life – what are the chances?
Mon 12 Feb 2024
10:00am
The concept of alien life, for many years relegated to the realms of Science Fiction, is now mainstream. Rovers on Mars are actively looking for biological signatures, over 5000 planets […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Public domain image (CC0)
Would you like to write your own life story?
Mon 8 Jan 2024
10:00am
Have you ever thought of writing about your life – whether for your children and grandchildren, your own interest, or for posterity – but don’t know where to start? The […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD