Gold-tinged togetherness as Londoners flock to Primrose Hill for the solar eclipse

London hasn’t seen a solar eclipse this big since 1999.

Now in the big year or 2026, as thousands flock to the peak of Primrose Hill for the spectacle, there’s still something ​’90s about it. Maybe it’s DIY-ness of all the tech: Meta glasses aren’t going to cut it here, so it’s holographic plastic lenses on cardboard straps. Phone cameras aren’t any good at picturing the sun, so people have brought different camera set ups, colanders, cereal-box projectors. Maybe it’s the fact that — during the day in summer — it’s not 35 degrees. Maybe, as the sun sets behind the moon and the light flattens, it’s the weird feeling that things might be okay.

A two-hour long affair – the eclipse reached its peak at 7:13PM, where over 90% of the sun is covered. We won’t see coverage this full again until 2081. The moment draws a big cheer from the crowd – who are huddled shoulder-to-shoulder on picnic rugs, with bottles of fizz popping and boom boxes pumping tunes. Then, as the sun emerges from behind the moon and normal daylight resumes, it’s hazy like it as at 5am.

• Read next: Danny León pulls huge aerial in line with the solar eclipse

The modern world is fraught, big tech is big, the internet is loud – and once every few decades, we get a cosmic-sanctioned dose of perspective.

Huck’s Ella Glossop was there to capture the scenes. See her photographs below.

Ella Glossop is Huck’s social editor. Follow her on Bluesky.

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