The year in Albion

Tar barrels and bog snorkelling, garlands and ba' games, wassails and shin-kicking: the customs Britain keeps coming back to, month by month, starting now. Each date says how sure we are, and every event links to the people who run it.

October 2026this month

The charter fairs have their turn, from Nottingham's Goose Fair to the Mop at Stratford-upon-Avon. Hastings lights its bonfire in the middle of the month, and Samhain is marked on Calton Hill on the 31st.

Wed 21 October Apple Day
Sat 31 October Hallowe'en and Samhain

Sussex bonfire season
Likely Sat 5 September – Sat 21 NovemberLikely on nowEach society has its own night; this season's are listed below
Across East and West Sussex
Long before Lewes lights up on the 5th, more than fifty Sussex towns and villages take their turn with torchlit processions and bonfires, one after another, from early September to late November. Each society keeps its own colours and torchlit night, and many turn out to march at each other's events too. Sussex people sum up the spirit with an old dialect phrase, 'we wunt be druv' — we won't be driven.
- Sat 5 September Uckfield
- Sat 12 September Fletching
- Sat 12 September Crowborough
- Sat 3 October Northiam
- Sat 17 October Hastings
- Sat 24 October Ninfield
- Sat 31 October Ewhurst & Staplecross
- Thu 5 November Lewes
- Sat 7 November Battle
- Sat 14 November Rye
- Sat 21 November Robertsbridge
Official site
Make a day of it: Pells Pool, Lewes, Monk's House
Hull Fair
Fri 9 – Sat 17 OctoberOn nowConfirmed by the organisers
Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire
Rides and stalls fill Walton Street and West Park for nine days every October, closed only for the Sunday in between. The Lord Mayor opens it on the Friday at 4pm, ringing a bell on one of the rides. The date is traditionally traced to 1752, when Britain dropped eleven days from the calendar and Hull crowds are said to have demanded them back; the fair has run close to that date since. Entry's free.
Official site
Make a day of it: Humber Bridge Country Park , Beverley Minster , Beverley
Royal National Mòd
Fri 9 – Sat 17 OctoberOn nowHosted in a different town every year; 2027 is Stornoway's turn, the Mòd's seventh visit to the Western Isles
Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, in 2027 · Ticketed
Gaelic singers, pipers, poets and dancers converge on the host town for more than a week of competition across more than 200 categories, spanning Gaelic song, poetry and drama. An Comunn Gàidhealach has run the festival since 1892, when it borrowed the idea from the Welsh Eisteddfod; the host town changes every year, announced roughly two years ahead. BBC Alba covers the closing choir final and the Gold Medal singing.
Official site
Make a day of it: Lews Castle
Hastings Bonfire (Hastings Borough Bonfire Society)
Sat 17 OctoberTomorrowConfirmed by the organisers
Hastings, East Sussex · From 7.15pm · Free
Members of the Hastings Borough Bonfire Society light torches at White Rock at quarter past seven and process through the Old Town, the longest single torchlit procession in Sussex, before the bonfire and a secret effigy burn around nine. The society reformed in 1995, decades after Hastings' own bonfire nights, first recorded in 1782, had faded away. Watching is free, though the procession and fire site are only open to members and invited participants.
Official site
Make a day of it: Battle Abbey , Hastings Country Park, Fairlight Glen
World's Biggest Liar
OctoberBack in 2026 after a seven-year break, now at Jennings Brewery in Cockermouth; the date is still to be announced
Cockermouth, Cumbria
Storytellers get five minutes to spin the tallest tale they can, unscripted and without props. The contest is held in memory of Will Ritson, a Wasdale innkeeper whose whoppers included turnips so big that people hollowed them out for cow sheds. After decades at the Bridge Inn in Santon Bridge, it lapsed in 2019 and returns in 2026 at Jennings Brewery in Cockermouth, with three contestants facing the judges for the trophy.
Official site
Make a day of it: Wordsworth House, Loweswater, Bassenthwaite Lake
Punkie Night
Likely Thu 29 OctoberIn about 13 daysUsually on the last Thursday in October, or the week before if that's Halloween; 2026 date not announced yet
Hinton St George, Somerset · From about 6pm
Children hollow out mangelwurzels, a big beet grown as cattle feed, carve faces into them and set a candle inside to make a glowing 'punkie', then carry them through the village in a procession judged for the best design. Legend traces it to the wives of Hinton St George, said to have made lanterns to guide their drunken husbands home from a fair in Chiselborough; records go back to the nineteenth century, maybe older.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Montacute House , Lord Poulett Arms, The White Horse (Haselbury Plucknett)
Samhuinn Fire Festival (Beltane Fire Society)
Sat 31 OctoberConfirmed by the organisers
Calton Hill, Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh · Ticketed
On Calton Hill, performers act out a battle between the Summer King and the Winter King that always ends in Winter's victory, marking the start of the darker half of the year. The Cailleach, an old woman from Gaelic myth, watches over the fight and decides each king's fate. The Beltane Fire Society, a charity formed in 1988, has staged Samhuinn since 1995, moving the performance from the Royal Mile to Calton Hill in 2018.
Official site
Make a day of it: Palace of Holyroodhouse , Edinburgh Castle , Arthur's Seat

In the wild

Red deer rut September to November, peaking mid-October to mid-November
Stags roar, lock antlers and gather hinds through the autumn rut, the roaring carrying across the hills at dawn and dusk. Keep well back with a zoom lens or binoculars rather than a closer look.
Richmond Park · Exmoor · Cairngorms
Autumn colour mid-October to early November, earlier in Scotland
Maples, beech and birch turn gold, copper and red before the leaves fall, usually peaking in mid-October. Scotland's birch woods turn first; sheltered valleys further south can hold their colour into November.
Westonbirt Arboretum · Glen Affric
Barnacle geese arrive late September through October, staying to March
Barnacle geese fly in from Greenland and Svalbard, thousands strong, to spend the winter on coastal grazing marsh. Islay alone can hold three-fifths of the world's Greenland-breeding population by midwinter.
Isle of Islay · WWT Caerlaverock

Earlier this month

World Porridge Making Championship (the Golden Spurtle)
Sat 3 OctoberBack next year, likely Sat 2 October 2027
Carrbridge, Highland · From 9.45am
A pipe band leads competitors into Carrbridge Village Hall, where cooks work through heats made from nothing but oatmeal, water and salt, judged purely on what's in the pot. Local hotelier Roger Reed started the contest in 1994 to put the village on the map outside tourist season — the speciality round since lets entrants add whatever they fancy, from sticky toffee to coconut and pandan. Entry's by donation, with tastings for anyone watching.
Official site
Make a day of it: Landmark Forest Adventure Park, Strathspey Steam Railway
Nottingham Goose Fair
Fri 25 September – Sun 4 OctoberBack on Fri 24 September – Sun 3 October 2027
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire · Free entry
Geese driven in from the Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk fens gave this fair its name, though it wasn't widely called Goose Fair until 1541; its first royal charter, from Edward I, dates back further still, to 1284. A livestock market shifted gradually through the 1800s into today's amusement fair, ten days of rides and stalls that are free to get into, drawing around half a million visitors.
Official site
Make a day of it: Wollaton Hall , Nottingham Castle, City of Caves
Wasdale Head Show and Shepherds' Meet
Sat 10 OctoberBack on Sat 9 October 2027
Wasdale Head, Cumbria
Deep in the fells above Wast Water, shepherds gather at Wasdale Head to show their flocks, race hounds and terriers, and settle who has the best beard and the best-kept boots. The day's classes take in Herdwick sheep, Cumberland wrestling and a fell race. The meet has run for more than a century, moving to its current field in 1947 after the war.
Official site
Make a day of it: Great Gable , Scafell Pike , Wast Water
Stratford Mop Fair
Sun 11 – Mon 12 OctoberBack on Mon 11 – Tue 12 October 2027
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
Servants and farmhands once stood in the street holding a tool of their trade, or a plain mop if unskilled, so employers could look them over and strike a year's hiring on the spot. Once hired, the worker pinned on bright ribbons and put the mop down. The fair dates to a charter from Edward VI in 1544, and a smaller 'Runaway Mop' follows a fortnight later, a last chance to change the arrangement.
Official site
Make a day of it: Welcombe Hills and Clopton Park, Charlecote Park, Welford-on-Avon
World Conker Championships
Sun 11 OctoberBack next year, likely Sun 10 October 2027
Southwick, near Oundle, Northamptonshire · Ticketed
Each competitor tries to smash an opponent's conker off its string in three strikes, in knockout duels that have run since 1965. The championship spent 45 years at Ashton before high winds in 2011 and a lost venue in 2012 nearly ended it, prompting the move to the Shuckburgh Arms at Southwick in 2013. Women were barred from entering until 1988; the event has since raised over £485,000 for charities supporting the visually impaired.
Official site
Make a day of it: Fotheringhay, Deene Park, Fineshade Wood
Tavistock Goosey Fair
Wed 14 OctoberBack on Wed 13 October 2027
Tavistock, Devon
Stalls and rides fill Tavistock's streets for a fair that traces back to a charter from the early 12th century, making it one of the oldest of its kind anywhere in the country. Tavistock Town Council now organises the event, held every year on the second Wednesday of October, when traders set up through the town centre alongside the usual fairground attractions.
Official site
Make a day of it: Lydford Gorge , St Michael de Rupe, Brentor, Drake Manor Inn

November 2026

Bonfire month. Lewes and Ottery St Mary keep the 5th itself, most other towns take the nearest Saturday, and in Somerset the illuminated carnival carts roll through Bridgwater.

Thu 5 November Bonfire Night
Wed 11 November Martinmas and Armistice Day
Mon 30 November St Andrew's Day

Lewes Bonfire Night
Thu 5 NovemberConfirmed by the organisers
Lewes, East Sussex · Processions from about 5pm · Free to watch; firesites ticketed
Seven separate bonfire societies fill Lewes with flaming torches, costumes and drums, each running its own procession before building bonfires around the town. The night goes back to the Gunpowder Plot and, further back, to the seventeen Lewes Martyrs, Protestants burned in the town under Mary I in the 1550s. Roads close from about 4:45pm and no trains call after 3pm, so non-residents are firmly discouraged from travelling in on the night.
Official site
Make a day of it: Pells Pool, Monk's House, Firle (West Firle)
Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels
Thu 5 NovemberConfirmed by the organisers
Ottery St Mary, Devon · Afternoon into the night · Free
People carry blazing tar barrels through Ottery St Mary's streets rather than roll them, said to be the only town in the country doing it that way. Separate runs for children, women, men and youths build through the day to the largest barrel of the night, the Gurt Big Un. It's often linked to the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, though its exact origin isn't recorded, and rising insurance costs have made it increasingly expensive to stage.
Official site
Make a day of it: Cadhay, The PIG-at Combe, Sidmouth
Turning the Devil's Stone
Thu 5 NovemberConfirmed by the organisers
Shebbear, Devon · 8pm · Free
Bell-ringers and villagers gather outside St Michael's church at 8pm on Bonfire Night to turn the Devil's Stone, a lump of quartz conglomerate not found anywhere nearby, weighing close to a ton. Legend holds that the Devil is pinned beneath it, and turning the stone keeps him trapped for another year. Nine people managed it in 2024.
Official site
Make a day of it: RHS Garden Rosemoor
Battle Bonfire (Battel Bonfire Boyes)
Sat 7 NovemberConfirmed by the organisers
Battle, East Sussex · Procession from about 7.30pm · Free
The Battel Bonfire Boyes trace their society's records back to 1646, when the parish church put money aside for gunpowder-treason celebrations; the Guy effigy's carved wooden head dates from around 1795. Today's procession sets off from Market Road at about half past seven, torches lighting the way to a bonfire and fireworks. Battle grew up around the abbey built on the site of the 1066 battle, and the night is free to attend.
Official site
Make a day of it: Battle Abbey , Bodiam Castle , Fuller's Pyramid
Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival
Sat 7 NovemberConfirmed by the organisers
Bridgwater, Somerset · Procession from 6pm · Free
An illuminated procession fills Bridgwater's streets each November, billed as the UK's oldest carnival, tracing back to 1605 bonfires marking the capture of Guy Fawkes. Carts up to a hundred feet long take over two hours to pass a single spot on the 1.7-mile route. The night ends with squibbing, found nowhere else and recorded since 1716: around two hundred people simultaneously fire fireworks called squibs, mounted on poles called coshes, along the High Street.
Official site
Make a day of it: Burrow Mump, Hestercombe Gardens, Coates English Willow
Edenbridge Bonfire and its celebrity guy
Sat 7 NovemberAlways on the Saturday nearest 5 November
Edenbridge, Kent · From about 6.30pm · Procession free; fireworks ticketed
An eleven-metre effigy of the year's chosen celebrity or politician goes up in flames at Edenbridge each November, a custom running for about thirty years. Recent guys have included Liz Truss holding a lettuce in 2022, marking her record as the shortest-serving prime minister, the ticketing company Ticketmaster in 2024, and Keir Starmer in 2025, each burned alongside a more traditional Guy Fawkes. There's a strict no-alcohol policy on the bonfire field.
Official site
Make a day of it: Hever Castle , Chartwell, Toys Hill
Wroth Silver ceremony
Wed 11 NovemberAlways on 11 November, Martinmas, or the Saturday before when that's a Sunday
Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwickshire · At first light
Just before sunrise on 11 November, representatives of twenty-five parishes gather at Knightlow Cross to pay a few pence each into an ancient hollow stone, calling out 'wroth silver', a payment recorded since the twelfth century. Defaulters could once be fined a pound for every penny owed, or told to hand over a white bull with red ears instead. Cancelled only for the pandemic in 2020, it resumes yearly with rum and hot milk.
Official site
Make a day of it: Coombe Abbey Park, Stoneleigh Abbey, Coventry Cathedral
Hatherleigh Carnival flaming tar barrels
Sat 14 NovemberConfirmed by the organisers
Hatherleigh, Devon · First barrels about 5am
Devon's other tar-barrel carnival goes back to 1903, when Hatherleigh began it as a fundraiser for local healthcare, years before the NHS existed. The signature blazing tar barrels make their first run through the streets before dawn, at about 5am, and a full evening follows with a torchlit procession, marching bands, walking guys and tractor-drawn floats.
Official site
Lord Mayor's Show
Sat 14 NovemberConfirmed by the organisers
City of London · Free
Each newly elected Lord Mayor of London has to travel from the City to the Royal Courts of Justice to swear loyalty to the Crown, and that journey has grown into one of the biggest processions in the country. Marching bands, decorated floats and the gold State Coach make their way from Mansion House past St Paul's and back again, free to watch from the pavement.
Official site
Make a day of it: St Paul's Cathedral , Tower of London , Tower Bridge
Real Ale Wobble
Sat 14 NovemberConfirmed by the organisers
Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys
Riders take a waymarked, marshalled route of about 28 miles, or a shorter 15, through the hills above Llanwrtyd Wells, trading tokens for pints of local real ale at checkpoints and the finish. It is non-competitive, and opens the town's Mid Wales Beer Festival, which runs into the following week. Entry is capped at 500 places and booking closes a few days beforehand, so book early if you want a place before November.
Official site
Make a day of it: Capel Soar y Mynydd
Rye Bonfire
Sat 14 NovemberConfirmed by the organisers
Rye, East Sussex · From about 7pm
Rye's bonfire society parades torches, a dragon called Scorcher and a drum corps called the Ryebellion through the old town, ending at the Salts with a bonfire topped, most years, by a boat. The modern procession dates only from the 1950s and was revived in 1994 after a break, the year comedian Spike Milligan lit the bonfire, and around 10,000 people turned out in 2024.
Official site
Make a day of it: Rye Castle Museum (Ypres Tower), Camber Castle, Winchelsea town gates

In the wild

Grey seal pups pupping starts in Scotland from October, peaks in Norfolk and Lincolnshire in November and December
Grey seal cows haul out on open beaches to give birth, the white-coated pups a common winter sight by November. Watch from a distance; a mother that smells humans on her pup may abandon it.
Isle of May · Donna Nook Seal Colony · Horsey Gap Seals
Short-eared owls hunt by day November to February, sometimes into March
Short-eared owls fly in from Scandinavia and Russia to winter on marshes and rough grassland, hunting for voles in broad daylight rather than at night like most owls.
Nene Washes · Bempton Cliffs
Whooper swans arrive from October, numbers building through November
Whooper swans arrive from Iceland from October, their trumpeting calls filling wetland reserves through the winter. Look for the yellow, wedge-shaped bill that tells them apart from the resident mute swan.
Welney Wetland Centre · WWT Caerlaverock

December 2026

The shortest days bring out the lanterns. Mousehole eats stargazy pie on the 23rd, and at midnight on Hogmanay people from Allendale to Stonehaven carry fire through the streets.

Mon 21 December Winter solstice, the shortest day
Fri 25 December Christmas Day
Thu 31 December Hogmanay

Tenbury Mistletoe Festival and auctions
Likely Sat 5 DecemberListed for 2026 but not yet confirmed by the organisers
Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire · Auctions from 10am
Known locally as the mistletoe capital, Tenbury Wells hosts two different December events: a community festival with a Santa parade, running since 2005, and much older trade auctions of holly and mistletoe, run today by auctioneer Nick Champion, that go back around a hundred and sixty years. Local orchards have long suited mistletoe, which roots readily in old apple trees, and that abundance is why buyers travel here for the sales.
Official site
Make a day of it: Ludlow Castle , Ludlow
Mari Lwyd at St Fagans
December weekendsUsually on a weekend or two in December, set by the museum; 2026 date not announced yet
St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff
A horse's skull on a pole, draped in a white sheet with a spring-hinged jaw, is the star of St Fagans' midwinter Mari Lwyd performances. Dancers from Cwmni Dawns Werin Caerdydd carry it door to door each December, free to watch, singing and trading insulting rhymes with whoever answers before being let in. The Mari Lwyd is recorded as far back as 1798 and was once common across south Wales.
Official site
Make a day of it: Castell Coch , Caerphilly Castle , St Fagans
Holy Thorn cutting ceremony
Mid DecemberUsually on a school day in mid December; 2026 date not announced yet
Glastonbury, Somerset
On a school day timed to fit the calendar each December, children from St John's Infant School cut a sprig from Glastonbury's Holy Thorn, said to have grown from a staff planted by Joseph of Arimathea. The Mayor helps with the cutting, and the sprig goes to the monarch for the Christmas table, a practice dating to 1929. Vandalism on Wearyall Hill means the sprig now comes only from the tree in St John's churchyard.
Official site
Make a day of it: Glastonbury Abbey , Glastonbury Tor , Wells Cathedral
Hoodening (the Hooden Horse)
The week before ChristmasUsually on evenings in the week or so before Christmas; 2026 dates not announced yet
St Nicholas-at-Wade and around East Kent
Hidden under sacking, a performer works a wooden horse's head, snapping its hinged jaw at passers-by, while a waggoner cracks a whip and 'Mollie', a man in women's clothes, sweeps the path with a broom. St Nicholas-at-Wade, one of several East Kent villages with its own troupe, revived theirs in the 1960s after a 40-year gap, adding a mumming play still performed today. The earliest account is an 1891 letter recalling it from about 1846.
Official site
Make a day of it: Sarre Windmill, Reculver Towers and Roman Fort, Richborough Roman Fort
Burning the Clocks
Mon 21 DecemberConfirmed by the organisers
Brighton, Brighton and Hove · Early evening · Free
Paper and willow lanterns, carried by local makers, wind through Brighton's streets to the seafront on the longest night of the year. Same Sky, the charity behind the parade since 1994, built it as a non-religious way to mark the solstice. Rising costs forced a fallow year in 2025, with the parade returning in 2026 under a lantern theme called 'Magicada', named for a cicada that emerges only once every 13 to 17 years.
Official site
Make a day of it: Royal Pavilion, Whitehawk Hill & Camp, West Blatchington Windmill
Montol Festival
Mon 21 DecemberConfirmed by the organisers
Penzance, Cornwall · Lantern procession after dark
Guise dancing marks the shortest day in Penzance, with hundreds of people out in masks and homemade costumes for the night. A lantern parade comes down from Causewayhead to Greenmarket for traditional dancing, and after the Summoning of the Sun, marchers carry a Yule log called the Mock down Chapel Street to the sea, closing a festival revived in 2007 from the town's old midwinter ways.
Official site
Make a day of it: Mousehole , St Michael's Mount , St Ives
Winter solstice at Stonehenge (managed open access)
Likely Tue 22 DecemberUsually at the sunrise nearest the winter solstice; 2026 date not announced yet
Stonehenge, Wiltshire · Sunrise · Free
English Heritage lifts the rope that usually keeps visitors back from Stonehenge for the winter solstice, letting everyone walk right up to the stones to watch the sun rise over the Heel Stone. Around 15,000 people turned out before dawn in 2024, with access typically running from first light until mid-morning. Entry is free, but organisers ban drugs and alcohol on site and ask everyone to take their rubbish home.
Official site
Make a day of it: Bulford Kiwi, Old Sarum, Wilton House
Tom Bawcock's Eve
Wed 23 DecemberAlways on 23 December
Mousehole, Cornwall · Lantern procession after dark · Free
Legend has it Tom Bawcock rowed out into a storm when Mousehole was starving, and came back with enough fish to feed everyone. Mousehole remembers him with a stargazy pie at the Ship Inn, its fish heads poking through the pastry crust, given out for a donation to the RNLI rather than sold outright. Every 23 December, after dark, a handmade lantern procession winds through the streets.
Official site
Make a day of it: St Michael's Mount , Porthcurno , Minack Theatre
The Devil's Knell
Thu 24 DecemberAlways on Christmas Eve
Dewsbury, West Yorkshire · From about 10.30pm · Free
A tenor bell known as Black Tom is tolled at Dewsbury Minster once for every year since the birth of Christ, a practice that goes back to the fifteenth century. Local legend says a knight, Thomas de Soothill, gave the bell in penance for killing a servant boy. Ringing begins late on Christmas Eve and is timed so the final stroke lands at midnight, just as a communion service gets under way inside.
Official site
Make a day of it: Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Kirkwall Ba'
Fri 25 December and Fri 1 JanuaryAlways on Christmas Day and New Year's Day (the day after, when either is a Sunday)
Kirkwall, Orkney · Boys' game 10am, men's 1pm · Free
Two teams called the Uppies and the Doonies spend hours wrestling a hand-stitched leather ba' through Kirkwall's streets, with no referee and no formal rules. The Uppies win by getting the ba' to a wall at Mackinson's Corner, the Doonies by dropping it into the harbour. It's played twice a year, boys at 10am and men at 1pm on both Christmas Day and New Year's Day, and shopkeepers board up their windows for days beforehand.
Official site
Make a day of it: Orkney Mainland , St Magnus Cathedral, The Orkney Museum
Grenoside Sword Dance
Sat 26 DecemberAlways on Boxing Day, or the 27th when that's a Sunday
Grenoside, South Yorkshire · 11am · Free
Outside the Old Harrow pub on Main Street, six dancers link hilt to blade tip, forming an unbroken chain that builds to the captain's mock beheading inside a star of locked blades. Records trace the side back nearly 200 years, and Cecil Sharp noted the steps down in 1910. The dance has continued on the same spot for generations, pausing only for the two World Wars, and Yorkshire carols follow once the swords come down.
Official site
Make a day of it: Wentworth Woodhouse, Wentworth Castle Gardens
Marshfield Paper Boys (mummers)
Sat 26 DecemberAlways on Boxing Day
Marshfield, South Gloucestershire · From 11am · Free
Dressed head to foot in strips of coloured paper so no one can tell who's underneath, the Old Time Paper Boys perform their play several times through Marshfield on Boxing Day morning, from the Market Place to the Almshouses. It's a fight-and-revival story: Saucy Jack and Old Father Beelzebub come to blows before a doctor revives the loser. Remembered from the 1880s, the play was pieced back together from older villagers' memories in 1930.
Official site
Make a day of it: Castle Combe , Roman Baths , Restaurant Hywel Jones at Lucknam Park
Tenby Boxing Day Swim
Sat 26 DecemberAlways on Boxing Day
Tenby, Pembrokeshire · 11am · Free to watch
Around a thousand swimmers, many in fancy dress, wade into the sea at Tenby's North Beach at 11am on Boxing Day, organised by the Tenby Sea Swimming Association. Money raised goes to local causes such as the RNLI, Tenby Sea Cadets and a child bereavement charity, with close to £300,000 handed over since the swim began — the 2025 event alone raised more than £5,500.
Official site
Make a day of it: Castle Beach, St Catherine's Island, Tenby North Beach
Allendale Tar Bar'l
Thu 31 DecemberAlways on New Year's Eve
Allendale Town, Northumberland · Barrels lit about 11.30pm · Free
Forty-five men known as guisers, all born in the Allen Valleys, march through Allendale balancing barrels of blazing tar on their heads. The parade forms behind the local band just before midnight and ends at a bonfire in the market place, where the barrels are pitched onto the flames as the New Year turns. Records go back to at least 1858, and turning up to watch costs nothing.
Official site
Biggar Hogmanay Bonfire
Thu 31 DecemberAlways on Hogmanay
Biggar, South Lanarkshire · Lit about 9.30pm · Free
Pipers and drummers lead a torchlit procession through Biggar before the bonfire is lit outside the Corn Exchange on the High Street at half past nine. Written mentions of the fire go back to the early 1800s. In 2025 the community had to crowdfund to cover new insurance and traffic costs the council had passed down to local organisers.
Official site
Comrie Flambeaux
Thu 31 DecemberAlways on Hogmanay
Comrie, Perth and Kinross · Parade at midnight · Free
Long poles of birch, wrapped in tarred rags, are lit and carried around Comrie behind the pipe band, known locally as the flambeaux. A fancy dress parade follows, and the burning poles are finally thrown from Dalginross Bridge into the River Earn. Comrie called the whole thing off in 2020 and 2021 under Covid rules, the first interruption since the Second World War, though it costs nothing to watch.
Official site
Make a day of it: The Glenturret Distillery
Nos Galan Road Race
Thu 31 DecemberConfirmed by the organisers
Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf · Evening · Free to watch
The race is named for Guto Nyth Brân, an eighteenth-century Welsh runner, and starts each New Year's Eve with a torch lit at his grave in Llanwynno churchyard and carried down to Mountain Ash. Runners then race several laps of the town centre before crowds that can reach 10,000. Local runner Bernard Baldwin founded it in 1958; traffic concerns halted it in 1973, and it returned in 1984 with just 14 runners.
Official site
Make a day of it: BikePark Wales, Rhondda Heritage Park, Parc Cwm Darran
Stonehaven Fireballs
Thu 31 DecemberConfirmed by the organisers
Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire · At midnight · Free
As the Town House clock strikes midnight, around 40 swingers process up Stonehaven High Street, each swinging a blazing ball of fire above their head. The balls are thrown into the harbour to finish, and fireworks follow, in a ceremony organisers say burns off the old year's bad spirits so the new one starts clean. Entry is free, though rising costs have pushed organisers to seek recognition as protected Scottish heritage.
Official site
Make a day of it: Dunnottar Castle , Stonehaven Harbour, Stonehaven Open Air Swimming Pool
Stromness Yule Log Pull
Thu 31 DecemberAlways on Hogmanay
Stromness, Orkney · Free
The Northenders and Southenders of Stromness take up a rope each on Hogmanay and haul a half-tonne log through the town towards their own end, in a tug-of-war between the two halves of town. The game died out in 1937 and stayed dead for eighty years until the town brought it back in 2017, with a junior pull for under-16s added the year after.
Official site
Make a day of it: Ring of Brodgar , Skara Brae , Old Man of Hoy

January 2027

The old New Year still gets its due. Wassailers bless the apple trees around Old Twelfth Night, the Straw Bear dances through Whittlesey, and Shetland ends the month by burning a Viking galley.

Fri 1 January New Year's Day
Tue 5 January Twelfth Night
Mon 11 January Plough Monday
Sun 17 January Old Twelfth Night, the old wassailing night
Mon 25 January Burns Night, and St Dwynwen's Day in Wales

Loony Dook
Fri 1 JanuaryAlways on New Year's Day
South Queensferry, Edinburgh · About 9.30am · Free
Fancy dress is common but not required among the hundreds who wade into the Firth of Forth at South Queensferry on New Year's Day, which began life as a jokey hair-of-the-dog cure for Hogmanay hangovers. Once part of Edinburgh's official Hogmanay programme, the dook has run since the pandemic as a free, volunteer-organised event with no ticket needed, and the local charity Queensferry Care collects donations from those taking part.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Forth Bridge Viewpoint, Craigies Farm, Hopetoun House
Haxey Hood
Wed 6 JanuaryAlways on 6 January, Old Christmas Day, or the 5th when the 6th is a Sunday
Haxey, Lincolnshire · The Sway from about 2.45pm
Thirteen farmhands chasing a runaway silk hood across a field gave Haxey its yearly game: Lady de Mowbray's hood blew away here in the 14th century, and she donated land on condition the chase was re-enacted every year. A Lord, a Fool and eleven red-clad Boggins lead the crowd into the Sway, pushing a leather tube toward one of four pubs until the landlord touches it on his doorstep. 2025 was the 666th running.
Official site
Make a day of it: Gainsborough Old Hall, Beacon Hill, Gringley
Scalloway Fire Festival
Fri 8 JanuaryAlways on the second Friday in January
Scalloway, Shetland · Procession from about 7pm
Shetland's fire-festival season opens in Scalloway on the second Friday in January, fixed since 1984, though its roots reach back to a Christmas Day procession around 1900. A Guizer Jarl leads a squad, sometimes fifty strong, on a torchlit walk from Lovers Loan to Port Arthur, before the galley burns at the Boating Club and is pushed out to sea. Women take part in the Jarl Squad here too, unlike at Lerwick's Up Helly Aa.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Trondra, Meal Beach, Shetland Museum and Archives
Burning the Clavie
Mon 11 JanuaryAlways on 11 January, the old New Year's Eve, or the 10th when the 11th is a Sunday
Burghead, Moray · Lit just before 6pm
Burghead keeps its own New Year on 11 January, the date its calendar never gave up when Britain switched to the modern one in 1752. The Clavie King and his crew, fifteen men all born in the town, carry a burning half-barrel of tar through the streets on a pole, handing out smouldering splinters for luck, before wedging it into a stand on Doorie Hill, an old Pictish fort; a 1655 document calls it ancient.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Burghead Promontory and Well, Hopeman Beach and Bathing Huts, Findhorn Beach
Hen Galan (the old New Year)
Wed 13 JanuaryAlways on 13 January, the old New Year's Day
Cwm Gwaun (Gwaun Valley), Pembrokeshire
While the rest of Britain moved its calendar in 1752, the Gwaun Valley never did, so its New Year falls on 13 January. Children go door to door singing for calennig, coins or sweets; turning them away, it's said, brings a smoky house and bad luck. Most of the valley's 300 residents end up that evening at the Dyffryn Arms, Bessie's, run by Bessie Davies for 72 years until her 2023 death.
Find out more
Make a day of it: Pentre Ifan , Dyffryn Arms (Bessie's), Carn Ingli
Carhampton apple wassail
Sat 16 JanuaryAlways on 17 January, Old Twelfth Night, or the Saturday before when that's a Sunday
Carhampton, Somerset · From 6.30pm
On Old Twelfth Night, 17 January, Carhampton never stopped wassailing its apple trees, making it one of the few genuine survivals rather than revivals. Toast soaked in cider goes up in the branches for the robins, cider goes on the roots, and everyone sings wassail carols before shotguns are fired to wake the trees for the year ahead. A bonfire follows in the Community Orchard, set up in 1997 by the Butchers Arms.
Official site
Make a day of it: Dunster Castle , Dunster, The Luttrell Arms
Goathland Plough Stots
Sat 16 JanuaryAlways on the Saturday after Plough Monday
Goathland, North Yorkshire
Long sword dancers weave their blades into linked figures as they move between stops around the village, a fool and musicians alongside them. Frank Dowson revived the dancing in the 1920s, after it lapsed in the 1870s, and the team call themselves 'stots', after the young oxen that traditionally pulled the plough. The parade sets off from the Community Hub at half past nine on the Day of Dance.
Official site
Make a day of it: North York Moors , Mallyan Spout, Thomason Foss
Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival
Fri 15 – Sun 17 JanuaryConfirmed by the organisers
Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire · Procession on the Saturday morning · Free (ceilidh ticketed)
The original Straw Bear came out once a year, wound head to foot in twisted straw and led on a chain to dance for money, food or drink, until a police inspector banned the begging in 1909. Brian Kell revived it in 1980 with about 30 people. A bear in a modern frame now leads more than 250 dancers and musicians through Whittlesey, before being burned at Decoy Lakes on the Sunday.
Official site
Make a day of it: Flag Fen Archaeology Park, Peterborough Lido, Peterborough Cathedral
Whimple Wassail
Mon 18 JanuaryAlways on 17 January, Old Twelfth Night, or the Monday after when that's a Sunday
Whimple, Devon · From 7pm · Free
A wassail here lapsed after the Second World War until the Whimple History Society brought it back in 1993, and it has run every Old Twelvy Night since, Devon's name for the pre-1752 Twelfth Night. Folk musicians lead a lantern-lit procession from the Heritage Centre's own tree, the Whimple Wonder, round the orchards to the cricket club. The earliest written record here dates from 1927; there's no charge, just a collection for the Centre.
Official site
Make a day of it: The Five Bells Inn, Cadhay, Ottery St Mary
Chepstow Wassail and Mari Lwyd
Mid to late JanuaryUsually on a Saturday in mid to late January; 2027 date not announced yet
Chepstow, Monmouthshire · Afternoon into the evening
Widders Border Morris first paired two border practices in 2004: English wassailing, and the Welsh Mari Lwyd, a horse's skull carried on a pole whose bearers sing their way into pubs. The two sides process separately through Chepstow before meeting on the Wye bridge to swap flags between Wales and England. After a break of several years, Widders revived the event in 2024, and a ceilidh at the Drill Hall now rounds off the evening.
Official site
Make a day of it: Tintern Abbey , Chepstow Castle, Giant's Cave
Up Helly Aa
Tue 26 JanuaryConfirmed by the organisers
Lerwick, Shetland · Torchlit procession from about 7.30pm
Nearly a thousand guizers fill Lerwick's streets on the last Tuesday in January, following the Guizer Jarl, dressed as a Viking chief, behind a specially built longship. Torches go in at dusk, the galley is dragged to the sea front, and everyone sings before the Jarl throws in his torch and the ship burns to nothing. Halls stay open until dawn, and the Wednesday after is a local holiday.
Official site
Make a day of it: Mareel, Shetland Museum and Archives, Bressay

In the wild

Otters easier to spot coldest months, December to February
Otters stay active all winter and hunt more by day when food is scarce and the cold pushes up their energy needs. Look for a v-shaped ripple at dawn or dusk near the water's edge.
WWT Arundel Wetland Centre · WWT Washington Wetland Centre
Hazel catkins January to March, earliest in the south
Hazel's pale yellow catkins, the country's old 'lamb's tails', open before any leaf shows, dusting the air with pollen on a shake of the branch. One of the first flowers of the new year.
Hayley Wood · Wyre Forest
Barn owls hunt by day hard frosts, mainly December to February
Barn owls normally hunt by night, but hard frost can force them into daylight hunting to find enough voles. A pale shape quartering a hedgerow in low winter light is worth a second look.
RSPB Pulborough Brooks · Havergate Island

February 2027

Shrove Tuesday is the big day. Crowds turn out for street football in Ashbourne and Atherstone, Olney runs its pancake race, and Scarborough skips on the seafront.

Mon 1 February Imbolc, the old start of spring
Tue 2 February Candlemas
Tue 9 February Shrove Tuesday

Hurling the Silver Ball, St Ives
Mon 8 FebruaryConfirmed by the organisers
St Ives, Cornwall · Hurling from 10.30am · Free
The mayor throws a silver ball into the crowd on the beach, shouting the Cornish phrase 'guare wheg yw guare teg', meaning fair play is good play, and whoever holds it until noon returns it for a silver coin. The ball itself is silver, built round an applewood core. Hurling is a Cornish form of rugby reckoned a thousand years old, and the feast marks the 1434 consecration of the parish church.
Official site
Make a day of it: Godrevy Lighthouse , St Michael's Mount , Tate St Ives
Alnwick Shrovetide Football
Tue 9 FebruaryAlways on Shrove Tuesday
Alnwick, Northumberland · From 2pm · Free
The Duke of Northumberland throws the ball from the castle barbican to start play, and a piper leads everyone to the Pastures across the river, where St Michael's parish plays St Paul's. There are few rules and no referee, and anyone who wants to can join in — players divide into the two parish teams by postcode. The fixture, also known as 'Scoring the Hales', has been recorded since at least 1762.
Official site
Make a day of it: Alnwick Castle , The Alnwick Garden , Warkworth Castle
Royal Shrovetide Football
Tue 9 – Wed 10 FebruaryAlways on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday
Ashbourne, Derbyshire · Ball turned up at 2pm both days · Free
The Up'ards and the Down'ards, named for which side of the River Henmore they were born on, wrestle a leather ball toward goals three miles apart at Sturston Mill and Clifton Mill. Whoever scores taps the ball three times against the old mill wheel, keeps it, and is carried shoulder-high back to the Green Man. Princess Mary gave the game royal patronage in 1922; only foot-and-mouth disease and covid have stopped play since.
Official site
Make a day of it: Dovedale , Thor's Cave , Manifold Valley
Atherstone Ball Game
Tue 9 FebruaryAlways on Shrove Tuesday
Atherstone, Warwickshire · Ball thrown out at 3pm · Free
Warwickshire is said to have won a football match against Leicestershire for a bag of gold back in 1199, and Atherstone's game began as the rematch. There are no goals and no teams; anyone can join in, and whoever holds the ball when play ends keeps it. A locally connected celebrity throws it from an upstairs window on Long Street, after coins and sweets go to the children first — 2025 marked the 825th playing.
Official site
Make a day of it: Hartshill Hayes Country Park, Polesworth Abbey, Twycross Zoo
Olney Pancake Race
Tue 9 FebruaryConfirmed by the organisers
Olney, Buckinghamshire · 11.55am · Free
Every entrant has to be a woman who lives or works in Olney, wearing an apron and headscarf, tossing her pancake at both the start and finish of the 415-yard race. Said to date back to 1445, it lapsed during the war and was revived in 1948 by the vicar, with just thirteen runners. Since 1950 the winner's time has been compared, over a transatlantic link, with a sister race in Liberal, Kansas.
Official site
Make a day of it: Harrold, Salcey Forest, Willen Lake
Scarborough Skipping Day
Tue 9 FebruaryAlways on Shrove Tuesday
Scarborough, North Yorkshire · From about noon · Free
Fishermen clearing their boats for the new season used to throw out old hemp ropes, and Scarborough's children are said to have picked them up and started skipping on the beach. Foreshore Road closes to traffic so grown-ups and children alike can turn long ropes together. Official records go back to 1903, when 'a few bairns were skipping near the lifeboat' was noted; the day was known as Ball Day until the early 1900s.
Official site
Make a day of it: Scarborough Spa, Peasholm Park, Filey
Sedgefield Ball Game
Tue 9 FebruaryAlways on Shrove Tuesday
Sedgefield, County Durham · From 1pm · Free
The game is said to go back some 700 years, to a challenge between the men who built St Edmund's Church and the rest of the town. Anyone can run, kick or throw the ball, and the only way to end it is passing it back through the old bull ring in the market place three times before sundown. Secretive locals organise it every year; the Golden Lion's record of winners goes back 150 years.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Wynyard Park
Hurling the Silver Ball, St Columb Major
Tue 9 February and Sat 20 FebruaryAlways on Shrove Tuesday, and again on the second Saturday after
St Columb Major, Cornwall · Around midday · Free
Shopkeepers board up their windows twice a year, for the Town hurling match on Shrove Tuesday and the Country match eleven days later. Players fight over a silver-coated ball the size of a cricket ball, made since the 1990s by craftsman Colin Rescorla, and spectators sometimes reach in to touch it for luck. The winner is carried shoulder-high back to the Market Square, declaring the result a Town Ball or a Country Ball.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Bedruthan Steps , Fistral North , Padstow
Jedburgh Ba' Game
Likely Thu 11 FebruaryUsually on the Thursday after Fastern's E'en, which an old moon rhyme sets, most years the Thursday after Shrove Tuesday; 2027 date not announced yet
Jedburgh, Scottish Borders · Boys' game noon, men's 2pm · Free
The Uppies and the Doonies, named for which side of the Market Cross they were born on, wrestle ribbon-decorated leather balls through Jedburgh's streets toward their own goal, the Castle Jail for one side, the Pleasaunce for the other. Shopkeepers board up their windows first. Boys play at noon and the men take over at two, in a tradition recorded from 1548, though the first verified written record dates only to 1704.
Official site
Make a day of it: Jedburgh Abbey , Born in the Borders, Cross Keys Inn
King's Lynn Mart
Sun 14 FebruaryAlways opening on 14 February, Valentine's Day, and running for a week or two
King's Lynn, Norfolk · Opens at noon
A royal charter from Henry VIII in 1537 fixed the date: the Tuesday Market Place fills with rides and stalls from noon on Valentine's Day, and stays lit up for about a fortnight. The mayor reads the Proclamation, and dignitaries traditionally take the first dodgem ride before the crowds pile in. The Mart doubles as the start of the showmen's travelling season, when new rides get their first outing after a winter in storage.
Official site
Make a day of it: Sandringham House , Castle Rising Castle

In the wild

Snowdrops late January to March, at their best in February
Drifts of snowdrops open in old gardens and churchyards from late January, at their best through February. A few gardens plant nothing else and open just for the display.
Welford Park · Cambo Gardens
Curlews return to the moors from February
Curlews leave the coast and head back to moorland and hay meadow to breed, their bubbling call one of the first signs of the turning season. Numbers have fallen sharply, so every returning pair matters.
Geltsdale & Glendue Fells · Forest of Bowland
Frogspawn January in the mild south-west, more usually February to March, later still in Scotland
Frogs gather at ponds to mate, leaving clumps of jelly-like spawn just under the surface. Warm spells bring it on early in the south-west; expect it later further north and inland.
WWT Slimbridge · Martin Mere, Burscough

March 2027

Spring's customs start small, with a church bell in Lanark and a dole of flour at Tichborne. When Easter falls in March, the bottle kicking and coal carrying come early too.

Mon 1 March St David's Day
Fri 5 March St Piran's Day
Sun 7 March Mothering Sunday
Sat 20 March Spring equinox
Thu 25 March Lady Day, the old quarter day
Fri 26 March Good Friday
Sun 28 March Easter Sunday

National St David's Day Parade
Likely Mon 1 MarchUsually on 1 March, St David's Day; 2027 date not announced yet
Cardiff · Free
Flag-bearers, dragons, dancers and choirs from across Wales assemble by Cardiff's City Hall every 1 March for the National St David's Day Parade, marching into the city centre from midday. Cardiff Council has not funded the road closures a full parade needs for about a decade, so the march has kept mostly to the pavements, finishing outside St David's Hall for a mass rendition of the anthem, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, at 1pm.
Official site
Make a day of it: Castell Coch , Caerphilly Castle , Roath Park
Whuppity Scoorie
Mon 1 MarchAlways on 1 March, or the 2nd when the 1st is a Sunday
Lanark, South Lanarkshire · 6pm, when the kirk bell rings
Children run three times clockwise round St Nicholas' Kirk swinging paper balls on strings above their heads, then scramble for coins thrown by the Community Council. The balls are thought to descend from boys' caps, once rolled up and tied with string. Nobody knows why it began; first named in print in 1893, it has run since 1975 under the Royal Burgh of Lanark Community Council, which took over from the old Town Council.
Official site
Make a day of it: New Lanark , Falls of Clyde
St Piran's Day on Perran Sands
Likely Sun 7 MarchUsually on the Sunday nearest St Piran's Day, 5 March; 2027 date not announced yet
Perranporth, Cornwall · Procession from 2pm
Flag-bearers in Cornwall's black, white and gold lead a walk from Perran Sands across the dunes to St Piran's Oratory, an ancient chapel once buried in the sand and, organisers say, the oldest Christian building on the British mainland. Gorsedh Kernow, the body responsible for Cornish culture and language, organises the procession around 5 March, Cornwall's patron saint's day, continuing on afterwards to St Piran's Cross.
Official site
Make a day of it: Fistral North , Wheal Coates , Chapel Rock Pool
UK Wife Carrying Race
Sun 14 MarchConfirmed by the organisers
Dorking, Surrey
Couples run 380 metres up and over The Nower's hill and back down again, hurdling hay bales and getting soaked at a water-pistol 'splash zone', with one partner slung over the other's shoulders in a crash helmet for safety. The idea is borrowed from Scandinavia's wife-carrying championships, and Dorking has run its version since 2008. Entrants need not be married, or even a couple, and the carried partner can be either sex.
Official site
Make a day of it: Box Hill Country Park , The Deepdene Trail, Denbies Wine Estate
Kiplingcotes Derby
Thu 18 MarchAlways on the third Thursday in March
Kiplingcotes, East Riding of Yorkshire · Race between noon and 2pm
Miss a running and the derby ends for good, so however bad the weather, someone always saddles up. Riders have kept that promise every third Thursday in March since 1519, even leading a lone horse over the four miles of farm tracks and road verges in 1947's snow and the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak. The winner takes fifty pounds, but the runner-up often collects more, from the pooled entry fees.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Beverley Minster , The Pipe and Glass Inn, Beverley
Tichborne Dole
Thu 25 MarchAlways on 25 March, Lady Day
Tichborne, Hampshire
Lady Mabella Tichborne, dying around 1150, asked her husband Sir Roger for a permanent charity, funded by whatever land she could crawl around holding a lit torch. She covered twenty-three acres, the field now called the Crawls, and is said to have cursed the house to fall if the gift stopped. Flour grown there is handed out every Lady Day: a gallon per adult in Tichborne and Cheriton, half a gallon per child.
Official site
Make a day of it: Winchester Cathedral , New Alresford, Cheesefoot Head
Pace Egg plays at Midgley and Heptonstall
Fri 26 MarchAlways on Good Friday
Heptonstall, West Yorkshire · Performances through the day · Free
St George fights his way through Bold Slasher and the Black Prince of Paradine in Weavers Square, with a Doctor on hand to revive whoever falls. Heptonstall's team and Midgley's separate side share the square on Good Friday afternoon, performing in ribboned, flower-trimmed costumes. Local researcher David Burnop says nothing about the play is recorded before the 1500s, and it has lapsed and been revived more than once since.
Official site
Make a day of it: Haworth , Hardcastle Crags, Hebden Bridge
Uppies and Downies
Fri 26 March and Tue 30 March and Sat 3 AprilAlways on Good Friday, Easter Tuesday and the Saturday after
Workington, Cumbria
Uppies, from the mining side of Workington, and Downies, from the docks, start at the Cloffocks and haul a hand-made leather ball through the streets and the Beck over three games each Easter. The Uppies aim for the gates of Workington Hall, the Downies for a capstan on the dock; whoever gets there hails the ball, thrown up three times to finish. Newspapers called it long-running by the 1770s, and it raises thousands for charity.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: The Rum Story, Wordsworth House, Whitehaven Harbour
British and World Marbles Championship
Fri 26 MarchAlways on Good Friday
Tinsley Green, West Sussex
Two teams of six knock marbles out of a six-foot ring of sand at The Greyhound in Tinsley Green, shooting with a larger marble called the tolley. First to knock out twenty-five of the forty-nine marbles wins, if a knuckle stays on the ground each shot. Legend places an earlier contest between two suitors, Giles and Hodge, on the same spot in 1588; the modern championship has run here every Good Friday since 1932.
Official site
Make a day of it: Outwood Windmill, Gravetye Manor, Wakehurst Place
World Coal Carrying Championship
Mon 29 MarchAlways on Easter Monday
Gawthorpe, West Yorkshire
Runners haul a sack of coal, fifty kilograms for the men, twenty for the women, over 1,012 metres from the Royal Oak in Ossett to the maypole on Gawthorpe Green. The championship has run since 1963, and Andrew Corrigan of Driffield won the men's race five years running, from 2022 to 2026. In 2026 Fern Gardner's winning time in the women's race equalled the world record Cath Foley set back in 2011.
Official site
Make a day of it: Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Hare Pie Scramble and Bottle Kicking
Mon 29 MarchAlways on Easter Monday
Hallaton, Leicestershire
A pie, blessed at the church and paraded through Hallaton behind a brass band, is the gentle part of the day. What follows is a running battle with neighbouring Medbourne to force two of three small beer barrels, the bottles, over the village's own boundary stream, by carrying, kicking, rolling or throwing them. Legend says a hare once saved two women from a charging bull here; Hallaton won the contest in both 2024 and 2025.
Official site
Make a day of it: Eyebrook Reservoir, Lyddington, East Carlton Countryside Park

In the wild

Wild daffodils late February to March
Native wild daffodils, smaller and paler than the garden kind, flower in old orchards and damp fields along the Welsh border. Numbers have dropped hard elsewhere, so these pockets matter.
Farndale Daffodil Walk · Kempley Daffodil Meadow
Sand martins return late March
Sand martins are usually the first summer migrants back from Africa, arriving to dig fresh nest tunnels into sandy banks by late March. Watch for their scratchy chatter over the water.
WWT Washington Wetland Centre · WWT Arundel Wetland Centre
Adders emerge from hibernation March, on the first warm days
Adders, Britain's only venomous snake, wake from hibernation and bask openly on heathland in March sun, their zigzag markings easy to spot before scrub grows up around them.
Allerthorpe Common · Wealden Heaths

April 2027

Hungerford's Tutti men do their rounds after Easter and the Links Market fills Kirkcaldy's seafront. On the last night of the month, the Beltane fires are lit on Calton Hill.

Fri 23 April St George's Day
Fri 30 April Beltane Eve

Hocktide (Tutti Day)
Tue 6 AprilAlways on the second Tuesday after Easter
Hungerford, Berkshire · From 8am
A bellman sounds a horn from the Town Hall balcony to call Hungerford's Commoners to the Hocktide Court, a day tracing back to rights granted by John of Gaunt in the fourteenth century. Two Tutti-men carry poles topped with an orange and tour the Commoner households with the Orangeman and Tutti Girls, handing out oranges and collecting dues; Hungerford is said to be the only place that never stopped keeping Hocktide.
Official site
Make a day of it: North Wessex Downs, The Pheasant, Combe Gibbet
Links Market
Likely Wed 14 – Mon 19 AprilUsually from Wednesday to Monday around the third Friday in April; 2027 dates not announced yet
Kirkcaldy, Fife · Free entry
Rides and stalls run the length of Kirkcaldy's Esplanade for six days every April, tracing back to a market charter from 1304. Up to 300,000 visitors come through for over thirty adult rides and a hundred more for children. It returned in 2022 after two years off during the pandemic and has run every year since.
Official site
Make a day of it: Dysart Harbour, Silver Sands, Aberdour, Aberdour Castle
Shakespeare's Birthday Celebrations
Likely Sat 24 – Sun 25 AprilUsually over the weekend nearest 23 April; 2027 dates not announced yet
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
A procession makes its way from Shakespeare's birthplace on Henley Street to Holy Trinity Church, where pupils from his old school lay wreaths at his grave. Stratford's Shakespeare Club began the tradition in 1824, and costumed processions have run since 1826; the town council now organises the weekend with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and it's free to attend.
Official site
Make a day of it: Welcombe Hills and Clopton Park, Charlecote Park, Welford-on-Avon
Beltane Fire Festival
Fri 30 AprilAlways on 30 April, Beltane Eve
Calton Hill, Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh · After dark · Ticketed
Drummers, fire performers and acrobats lead the May Queen and the Green Man through a story of death and rebirth on Calton Hill on the last night of April. More than three hundred volunteers spend months building it, for what the Beltane Fire Society, formed in 1988, calls a modern take on old Gaelic fire festivals marking the start of summer, though the 2020 festival was cancelled and replaced with an online broadcast.
Official site
Make a day of it: Palace of Holyroodhouse , Edinburgh Castle , Arthur's Seat

In the wild

Bluebells mid-April into May, later further north
English bluebells turn ancient woodland floors blue-violet for a few weeks each spring, the scent as strong as the colour. Peak bloom runs mid-April into May, later further north.
Hayley Wood · East Blean Woods
Snake's-head fritillaries mid to late April
Snake's-head fritillaries, their chequered purple bells nodding over old water meadows, are now rare enough that a handful of sites hold most of the British population. Flowering usually runs mid to late April.
North Meadow, Cricklade · Iffley Meadows
Lambing season March to May in the uplands
Hill farms turn ewes and lambs onto the fells and moorland edges from March into May, one of the clearest signs of the season in the uplands. Keep dogs on leads and stick to paths.
Yorkshire Dales · Exmoor
Ospreys return from late March
Ospreys fly back from West Africa from late March, rebuilding the same huge stick nest and fishing over lakes and reservoirs. Rutland Water and Loch of the Lowes both stream the nest live online.
Rutland Water · Loch of the Lowes Wildlife Reserve · Abernethy

May 2027

The busiest month of the year. May Day brings out the 'Obby 'Oss in Padstow and the Jack in the Green in Hastings, and the late bank holiday is for chasing a cheese down Cooper's Hill.

Sat 1 May May Day and Beltane
Sun 16 May Whitsun
Sat 29 May Oak Apple Day

Bolster Day
Likely Sat 1 – Sun 2 MayUsually on the weekend before the early May bank holiday; 2027 dates not announced yet
St Agnes, Cornwall
A giant called Bolster is the reason St Agnes holds a spring pageant on the cliffs at Chapel Porth: legend says he loved the saint so much he agreed to fill a cliff-top hole with his blood to prove it, not knowing it ran clean through to the sea, and bled to death trying. The weekend opens with a Saturday lantern procession and bonfire, before Sunday's pageant re-enacts his defeat with a giant puppet.
Official site
Make a day of it: Wheal Coates , Chapel Rock Pool, Holywell Bay
Beltain Celtic Fire Festival
Likely Sat 1 MayUsually on the Saturday of the early May bank holiday weekend; 2027 date not announced yet
Butser Ancient Farm, Hampshire · Evening · Ticketed
A reconstruction of Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon buildings, Butser marks Beltain, the old Gaelic festival of summer's start, on the Saturday of the early May bank holiday. Cattle were once driven between two fires at Beltain; today the festival builds to a wickerman, a different design each year, burned at nightfall after music, crafts and living history; tickets sell out most years, so book early.
Official site
Make a day of it: Uppark, East Meon, Racton Monument
Gawthorpe Maypole Festival
Likely Sat 1 MayUsually on the first Saturday in May; 2027 date not announced yet
Gawthorpe, Ossett, West Yorkshire · Free
Schoolchildren plait ribbons around the maypole on Maypole Green at the end of a four-and-a-half-mile procession of floats, marching bands and a May Queen, setting off from Highfield's School on the first Saturday in May. The current pole, last replaced in 1986, stands on a green with May Day celebrations recorded to at least 1875, when a seventy-foot fir tree was raised there by public subscription. The 2024 procession was billed as the 150th.
Official site
Make a day of it: Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Knutsford Royal May Day
Likely Sat 1 MayUsually on the first Saturday in May; 2027 date not announced yet
Knutsford, Cheshire
The May Queen and her court ride to the crowning on Knutsford Heath in a horse-drawn carriage, part of a procession of morris dancers, Chinese dragons and children in costume. Beforehand, residents lay bands of coloured sand outside their houses, a practice traced to the late 1600s and noted by Queen Victoria in her diary in 1832. A nineteenth-century visit from the Prince and Princess of Wales gave the day its 'Royal' name.
Official site
Make a day of it: Tatton Park , Jodrell Bank Observatory , Alderley Edge
Minehead Hobby Horse
Fri 30 April – Mon 3 MayAlways from the eve of May Day to 3 May
Minehead, Somerset · Free
From the night before May Day until 3 May, Minehead's hobby horses take to the streets, boat-shaped frames of painted cloth on a dancer's shoulders, a long tail trailing behind. Three horses now visit the pubs, salute the sunrise at a crossroads on May morning, and finish with a ceremony called the Bootie. The earliest written record is from 1830, though one folklorist thought it may have been a Christmas custom moved to May Day.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Dunster Castle , The Luttrell Arms, Dunster
May Morning
Sat 1 MayAlways on 1 May
Oxford, Oxfordshire · 6am · Free
By six o'clock on May morning, thousands gather on Magdalen Bridge and the High to hear Magdalen College Choir sing in the day from the Great Tower, opening with the Hymnus Eucharisticus, a hymn written by a college fellow in the seventeenth century. The Oxford Society of Change Ringers then rings the bells for about twenty minutes. Nobody knows how May Morning began, only that it has run for more than five hundred years.
Official site
Make a day of it: Christ Church , Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons , University of Oxford Botanic Garden
'Obby 'Oss Day
Sat 1 MayAlways on 1 May, whatever the day
Padstow, Cornwall · Free
Two hobby horses take over Padstow every May morning, red for the Old 'Oss and blue for the Peace 'Oss, which emerged after the First World War as a symbol of peace. Each is led by drummers, accordion players and a 'teaser', a dancer who moves in front carrying a decorated club, in a routine called teasing. Singers bring the 'osses out from midnight outside the Golden Lion; the first written record dates from 1820.
Official site
Make a day of it: Bedruthan Steps , The Mariners, Bedruthan Steps
World Pilot Gig Championships
Likely Fri 30 April – Sun 2 MayUsually from Friday to Sunday before the early May bank holiday; 2027 dates not announced yet
Isles of Scilly
Crews race Cornish pilot gigs, six-oared wooden boats once used to get a harbour pilot out to an incoming ship first and win the job, off the Isles of Scilly each May bank holiday. The longest race runs St Agnes to St Mary's, and heats and finals for the shorter Nut Rock course follow. A handful of Cornish crews started it in 1990; teams now come from as far as the Netherlands, Ireland and France.
Official site
Make a day of it: Tresco Abbey Garden , St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, St Agnes and Gugh
Hastings Jack in the Green
Fri 30 April – Mon 3 MayConfirmed by the organisers
Hastings, East Sussex · Procession Monday morning; Jack released 4pm · Free
Jack, a man buried head to foot in leaves, leads Morris dancers, drummers and foliage-covered 'Bogies' through the Old Town on the bank holiday Monday. At four o'clock on West Hill he's stripped of his leaves to release the spirit of summer for another year. Keith Leech revived Jack in the Green here in 1983, and it has grown into the country's biggest such event, drawing around 20,000 visitors.
Official site
Make a day of it: Battle Abbey , Hastings Country Park, Fairlight Glen
Ickwell May Day
Mon 3 MayConfirmed by the organisers
Ickwell, Bedfordshire
One of England's few permanent maypoles stands on the green at Ickwell, and on the early May bank holiday Monday the Old Scholars, twenty-four adult dancers who once danced here as children, plait it after a half-mile procession from Northill. A May Queen presides, a character dressed as a chimney sweep's wife collects money, and children compete for the best decorated hoop. Churchwardens' accounts from 1563 already record payments for the dancers' shoes and bells.
Official site
Make a day of it: Swiss Garden, Old Warden, The Cock
Rochester Sweeps Festival
Sat 1 – Mon 3 MayAlways over the early May bank holiday weekend
Rochester, Kent · Free
Chimney sweeps once got a single day off, May Day, and paraded through Rochester, a custom that goes back some 300 years. It faded after the Climbing Boys Act of 1868 restricted child sweeps, until historian Gordon Newton revived it in the 1980s with a handful of Morris dancers. Hundreds of dancers now fill the high street over the bank holiday weekend, biggest on Saturday, with the traditional procession on the Monday.
Official site
Make a day of it: Rochester Cathedral, Rochester Castle, St Mary's, Higham
Whitstable Jack in the Green (May Day)
Mon 3 MayAlways on the early May bank holiday Monday
Whitstable, Kent · Free
Jack in the Green, a man inside a leaf-covered tower built like a giant May garland, leads morris dancers and musicians from Whitstable High Street down to the castle grounds. The Lions Club has run the fair since the 1970s, when Dixie Lee started the revival, and Dead Horse Morris now carries on the dancing after the Oyster Morris side retired. Entry is free, with stalls and a coconut shy for children too.
Official site
Make a day of it: Canterbury Cathedral , Mount Ephraim Gardens, The Fordwich Arms
Wray Scarecrow Festival
Likely Sat 24 April – Mon 3 MayUsually for about ten days up to the early May bank holiday; 2027 dates not announced yet
Wray, Lancashire
Every front garden and verge in Wray fills with home-made scarecrows built to a different theme each year — 'GOAT', Greatest of All Time, was 2026's pick. Now in its fourth decade as the longest-running scarecrow festival in the country, it runs about ten days, closing on the early May bank holiday Monday with the Wray Fair's parade and great ball race; there's no cash machine in the village, so bring cash.
Official site
Make a day of it: Crook o' Lune, Ingleton Waterfalls Trail, Ingleton
Penny Hedge (Horngarth)
Wed 5 MayAlways on Ascension Eve
Whitby, North Yorkshire · Finished by 9am · Free
On the harbourside mud below Church Street, the Bailiff of the Manor of Fyling weaves nine hazel stakes into a small hedge, strong enough to withstand three tides. Legend ties the hedge to 1159, when three huntsmen killed a hermit who had sheltered a wounded boar, and were sentenced to build it every year in penance. The Bailiff finishes with three blasts on a horn and the cry 'Out on Ye', repeated three times.
Official site
Make a day of it: Whitby Abbey , Whitby , Robin Hood's Bay
Tissington Well Dressing
Thu 6 – Wed 12 MayAlways for a week from Ascension Day
Tissington, Derbyshire
Five wells in the village, among them the Hall Well, Town Well and Coffin Well, get dressed with pictures built entirely from flower petals, moss and seeds pressed into wet clay, unveiled at an 11am service on Ascension Day itself. Tissington is usually named as the Derbyshire village where well dressing began, sometimes linked to 1348, when its water was thought to keep the Black Death away, and a procession blesses each well afterwards.
Official site
Make a day of it: Dovedale , Thor's Cave , Manifold Valley
Flora Day
Sat 8 MayConfirmed by the organisers
Helston, Cornwall · Dances from 7am · Free
Helston's day starts at 7am with dancing at the Guildhall, moves through the separate Hal-an-Tow pageant around 8.30am, and builds to the main Furry Dance at noon, when couples in top hats and gowns wind through the streets and in through shop and house doors, out the back and on again. 'Furry' is thought to come from the Cornish word 'fer', meaning fair or feast, and the day is entirely free to watch.
Official site
Make a day of it: Porthleven, Helford, Frenchman's Creek
Randwick Wap
Likely Sat 8 MayUsually on the Saturday after the first Sunday in May; 2027 date not announced yet
Randwick, Gloucestershire
On the first Sunday in May, three Double Gloucester cheeses, a hard orange cow's-milk cheese, are blessed at a Randwick church service, then rolled anti-clockwise round the churchyard, one cut up and eaten there and then. A week later, on Wap Day, the Mayor and the Wap Queen roll the other two downhill, while a costumed procession marches from the war memorial to the green, pausing to anoint marchers at the Mayor's Pool.
Official site
Make a day of it: The Bell Inn (Selsley), The Woolpack Inn (Slad), Painswick
RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Tue 18 – Sat 22 MayConfirmed by the organisers
Chelsea, London, Greater London · Ticketed
The Royal Horticultural Society has staged its flagship show at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, home to the Chelsea Pensioners, every year since 1913, having run before that at Inner Temple and, earlier still, at Chiswick. The first two days are for RHS members only, before the show opens to the public. Exhibitors from that first 1913 show, among them Kelways and McBeans Orchids, were still showing a century on.
Official site
Make a day of it: Buckingham Palace , Hyde Park , Westminster Abbey
Whit Friday Brass Band Contests
Fri 21 MayAlways on Whit Friday
Uppermill, Greater Manchester · Afternoon into the night · Free
Eleven separate brass band contests run at once across villages in Saddleworth and Oldham on the same evening, so bands criss-cross the hills trying to fit in as many as they can — play six or more and you qualify for the overall prize. It began in 1884 with bands competing at Uppermill and Mossley, and players still travel from Switzerland and Norway; locally, it's billed as 'the greatest free show on earth'.
Official site
Make a day of it: Saddleworth Museum, Dobcross, Dove Stone Reservoir
Castleton Garland Day
Sat 29 MayAlways on 29 May, Oak Apple Day (it moves when that's a Sunday)
Castleton, Derbyshire · Evening · Free
Hidden to the waist under a heavy bell-shaped garland of flowers, the Garland King rides through Castleton while the procession stops at every pub before reaching the church and maypole in the Market Place. The date coincides with the old Oak Apple Day, often linked to the 1660 restoration of Charles II, though some think it's an older May rite pushed back after Puritan bans on maypoles.
Official site
Make a day of it: Winnats Pass , Mam Tor , Peveril Castle
Oak Apple Day (Grovely Rights)
Sat 29 MayAlways on 29 May, Oak Apple Day
Great Wishford, Wiltshire · From dawn
Before dawn a band wakes Great Wishford, and residents head into Grovely Wood to gather oak boughs, a right claimed since 1603. Women called the Nitch carry the boughs on their heads to Salisbury Cathedral, dancing outside before going in to call out 'Grovely, Grovely, Grovely and all Grovely'. A midday parade with a fire engine and morris dancers then beats the village bounds with the boughs before the fete opens.
Official site
Make a day of it: Stonehenge , Salisbury Cathedral , Wilton House
The Atholl Gathering
Sun 30 MayConfirmed by the organisers
Blair Atholl, Perth and Kinross · Ticketed
The Duke of Atholl's private regiment, raised in 1839 as his ceremonial bodyguard, opens Sunday's Highland Games with a march-on behind their own pipes and drums, ahead of a day of games on the castle grounds. Membership is by the Duke's invitation, and the regiment is often billed as Europe's last private army, a status that traces to Queen Victoria's stay at the castle in 1844, when she granted it official colours the following year.
Official site
Make a day of it: Blair Castle Gardens , Queen's View , Falls of Bruar
Stilton Cheese Rolling
Likely Sun 30 MayUsually on the Sunday of the late May bank holiday weekend; 2027 date not announced yet
Stilton, Cambridgeshire
Four-person teams race down Stilton's playing field rolling a wooden 'cheese' on the Sunday of the spring bank holiday weekend, with a real Stilton, a trophy and beer for the winners. A newer race, the F1 Rollers, has one teammate strapped into overalls with loops on the back so others can carry them, cheese and all, on poles. Originally held at Easter, the festival returned in 2024 with stalls, food and live music.
Official site
Make a day of it: Nene Park, Longthorpe Tower, Peterborough Lido
World Poohsticks Championships
Likely Sun 30 MayUsually on the Sunday of the late May bank holiday weekend; 2027 date not announced yet
Sandford-on-Thames, Oxfordshire
Winnie the Pooh and friends invented the game by accident, dropping sticks off one side of a bridge and racing to see whose came out first on the other. Rotary clubs turned it into a full championship over forty years ago, raising money for the RNLI, now dropping sticks off Sandford Lock rather than the Little Wittenham bridge used for decades before. Entry costs five pounds a stick; watching from the bank is free.
Official site
Make a day of it: Christ Church , Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons , University of Oxford Botanic Garden
Maldon Mud Race
Sun 30 MayConfirmed by the organisers
Maldon, Essex · Free to watch
The race began in 1974 as a pub dare to serve a meal on the riverbank in a dinner jacket, which grew into a splash across the tidal mud of the River Blackwater to a beer barrel. Competitors, many in fancy dress, fight through 200 metres of mud before turning back, timed to a low tide for a safe crossing. 2024 marked its 50th anniversary; it raises tens of thousands for charity each year.
Official site
Make a day of it: Stow Maries Great War Aerodrome
Bampton Morris
Mon 31 MayAlways on the late May bank holiday Monday
Bampton, Oxfordshire · Free
Three separate morris sides, each with its own fool, squire and tunes, dance through Bampton from about 8:30am, stopping at pubs and private gardens right through to the evening. Dancing here on Whit Monday is locally reckoned to go back some 400 years, though written records only reach the late 1700s. The event now falls on the Spring Bank Holiday Monday, which replaced Whit Monday as the fixed holiday in 1971.
Official site
Make a day of it: The Bell Inn (Langford), The Plough, Kelmscott
Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling
Mon 31 MayAlways on the late May bank holiday Monday
Cooper's Hill, Gloucestershire
With no organiser willing to draw up a safety plan, the local council has called it unsafe in recent years, and every spring bank holiday Monday people turn up anyway to chase an eight-pound wheel of Double Gloucester down a slope so steep it's really more falling than running. First over the line wins the cheese. Records go back to at least 1836, and even Covid lockdowns didn't stop someone quietly rolling one down.
Find out more
Make a day of it: Gloucester Cathedral , Painswick Beacon, The Greenway Hotel and Spa
Hunting of the Earl of Rone
Fri 28 – Mon 31 MayAlways over the late May bank holiday weekend, Friday to Monday
Combe Martin, Devon
Over four days at the spring bank holiday, the Hobby Horse, the Fool and soldiers called Grenadiers hunt the Earl of Rone through Combe Martin, who keeps reviving until the Grenadiers carry his effigy to the beach on Monday evening and throw it into the sea. He's sometimes linked to the Earl of Tyrone, an Irish nobleman who hid nearby after fleeing Ireland in 1607; banned in 1837 for drunkenness, it stayed dormant until 1970.
Official site
Make a day of it: Great Hangman, Pyne Arms, Arlington Court
Tetbury Woolsack Races
Mon 31 MayAlways on the late May bank holiday Monday
Tetbury, Gloucestershire
Racers run Gumstool Hill's steep slope between the Royal Oak and the Crown carrying a woolsack on one shoulder — 60lb for the men, 30lb for the women, lighter for younger racers. Word has it that seventeenth-century wool drovers started it, showing off to women in the town when Tetbury was a major wool and yarn market town. The timed races proper have run since 1972, with times entered in the Guinness Book of Records.
Official site
Make a day of it: Westonbirt Arboretum, Malmesbury, The Crown

In the wild

Puffins return mid-April to late July, easiest May and June
Puffins come back to their cliff-top burrows from April, at their easiest to see through May and June before the chicks fledge. Numbers can run into tens of thousands on the biggest island colonies.
Skomer Island · Bempton Cliffs · Handa Island
Orchid meadows May
Old, unimproved hay meadows fill with orchids in May, from delicate green-winged orchid to the deeper pink of early purple orchid. Most of these meadows survive only because they were never sprayed or ploughed.
Marden Meadows · Noar Hill
Nightingales singing late April into May
Nightingale song, rich and full of sudden turns, carries from coppiced woodland at night in May, usually from an unremarkable brown bird deep in the scrub rather than anywhere you can see it.
East Blean Woods · Stodmarsh

June 2027

Midsummer month. The Border towns ride out on their common ridings, Appleby fills with horses, and on the solstice people gather at Stonehenge to watch the sun come up.

Mon 21 June Summer solstice, the longest day
Thu 24 June Midsummer Day, the old quarter day

Robert Dover's Cotswold Olimpick Games
Fri 4 JuneAlways on the Friday after the late May bank holiday
Dover's Hill, Gloucestershire · Evening · Ticketed
Robert Dover, a lawyer, started these games in 1612, hoping sport might bring rich and poor together. Its headline event is shin-kicking: competitors grip each other's shoulders and try to kick the other's shins to the ground, wearing soft shoes with padding allowed. The games lapsed, returned for the Festival of Britain in 1951, and have run yearly since 1966; at dusk a bonfire lights the hill before a torchlit procession heads into town.
Official site
Make a day of it: Broadway Tower , Chipping Campden, MO at Dormy House
West Linton Whipman Play
Likely Fri 4 – Sat 12 JuneUsually for Whipman Week, around the Rideout on the first Saturday in June; 2027 dates not announced yet
West Linton, Scottish Borders
A whipman was old Scots for a carter or pedlar, and the men of West Linton formed a benevolent society under that name in 1803. That original society's yearly holiday died out by 1877, but local worthies revived it as a public festival that now fills a week each June. Whipman Saturday, the week's centrepiece, has a couple elected as Whipman and Lass leading a mounted rideout, a wheelbarrow race and a cycle rideout.
Official site
Appleby Horse Fair
Thu 3 – Wed 9 JuneAlways from Thursday to the second Wednesday in June
Appleby-in-Westmorland, Cumbria
Around ten thousand Gypsies and Travellers, with roughly a thousand caravans, gather at Fair Hill for one of Europe's biggest horse fairs, washing horses in the River Eden and trotting them along the 'flashing lane' so buyers can see how they move. The fair held today rests on a customary legal right rather than any formal charter, dating to 1775, and draws about thirty thousand visitors in total.
Official site
Make a day of it: High Cup Nick
Lanimer Day
Thu 10 JuneAlways on the Thursday between 6 and 12 June
Lanark, South Lanarkshire
Fifteen boundary stones marking the old royal burgh's land get inspected every year in Lanark, 'Lanimer' being an old word for land marches; burgh records already called the duty 'ancient and yearly' back in 1588. Burgesses once simply walked the marches; today it's a full day of pageants and decorated floats in the morning, then massed bands marching out to Castlebank Park in the afternoon.
Official site
Make a day of it: New Lanark , Falls of Clyde
Hawick Common Riding
Fri 11 JuneAlways on the first Friday after the first Monday in June
Hawick, Scottish Borders · The main ride is the Friday
The callants, Hawick's young men, ride the boundaries of the town's common land each year, recalling 1514, when lads too young to have fought at Flodden the year before ambushed English soldiers at Hornshole and rode home with their captured flag. A Cornet, chosen each spring to carry the town's standard, leads festivities that also take in a Thursday Night Chase and a Kirking Sunday service. Cornets have been recorded at Hawick since 1703.
Official site
Make a day of it: Cross Keys Inn
World Custard Pie Championship
Likely Sat 12 JuneUsually on the second Saturday in June; 2027 date not announced yet
Coxheath, Kent · From noon
Four-person teams fling custard pies at their opponents, scoring a point per direct hit and losing one after three misses running, using roughly 1,500 pies made to a closely guarded recipe. The contest began in 1967 to raise money for a village hall, inspired by a Charlie Chaplin pie fight in the 1916 film Behind the Screen; its trophy went missing for two decades before turning up in an attic in 2011.
Official site
Make a day of it: Leeds Castle , Aylesford
Great Knaresborough Bed Race
Likely Sat 12 JuneUsually on the second Saturday in June; 2027 date not announced yet
Knaresborough, North Yorkshire
Teams built around a bed on wheels race through Knaresborough and straight across the River Nidd, part of an afternoon that starts with a 1pm parade of decorated beds, bands and floats from the castle grounds. Knaresborough Lions Club has run the race since 1966, raising money for local causes, with up to 90 teams battling to cross the river first.
Official site
Make a day of it: Knaresborough Viaduct , Mother Shipton's Cave, Plumpton Rocks
Man versus Horse Marathon
Likely Sat 12 JuneUsually on the second Saturday in June; 2027 date not announced yet
Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys
A pub argument at the Neuadd Arms Hotel, about whether a horse could really out-pace a man over rough ground, led the landlord to organise a race and settle it. Runners and riders now cover 22 miles of Powys hillside together, and any human who beats every horse home takes a jackpot that grows by £500 a year until somebody wins it; humans have won outright in recent years, including 2022 and 2023.
Official site
Make a day of it: Capel Soar y Mynydd
Knollys Rose Ceremony
JuneUsually on a weekday in June; 2027 date not announced yet
City of London
The Company of Watermen and Lightermen cut a single red rose from the garden on Seething Lane and carry it to Mansion House for the Lord Mayor, a small piece of rent paid every year since. In 1381 Lady Constance Knollys built the garden on city land without permission, and the fine set that day was one red rose a year, forever. The rent lapsed for centuries before its revival in 1924.
Official site
Make a day of it: Tower of London , Tower Bridge , St Paul's Cathedral
Selkirk Common Riding
Fri 18 JuneAlways on the second Friday after the first Monday in June
Selkirk, Scottish Borders · From early morning
Riders are in the saddle from about 4am, fording the Ettrick Water and climbing to the Three Brethren, a set of cairns above the town, before the real business back in the Market Place. There, standard bearers cast their flags to honour Fletcher, the only Selkirk man who came home from Flodden in 1513 — he swirled a captured English flag over his head to show the rest of the town's men were dead.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Abbotsford Gardens , Melrose Abbey , Bowhill Gardens
World Worm Charming Championships
A June SaturdayUsually on a Saturday in June, picked by the school; 2027 date not announced yet
Willaston, Cheshire
Tom Shufflebotham won the first championship at Willaston in 1980, charming 511 worms to the surface. Competitors now get a three-metre square of grass and half an hour to lure worms up without digging, using anything from 'twanging' a garden fork stuck in the ground to bouncing a football or playing music at the soil. It has run as a school fundraiser most years since, missing only 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic.
Official site
Make a day of it: Nantwich, Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker, Snugburys Ice Cream
Bawming the Thorn
Likely Sat 19 JuneUsually on the third Saturday in June; 2027 date not announced yet
Appleton Thorn, Cheshire
Schoolchildren circle the hawthorn tree beside St Cross Church, decorating it with ribbons and garlands and singing the Bawming Song to the tune of Bonnie Dundee — bawming is an old word for decorating. Appleton Thorn is the only English village keeping the ceremony, said to descend from a Glastonbury Thorn cutting brought here by a crusader knight, Adam de Dutton. Revived in the 1970s after decades lapsed, it now ends with a village fete.
Official site
Make a day of it: Tatton Park , Arley Hall, Lymm Dam
Peebles Beltane Festival
Likely Sun 13 – Sat 19 JuneUsually for the week ending on the Saturday nearest 21 June; 2027 dates not announced yet
Peebles, Scottish Borders
A Primary 7 pupil is crowned Beltane Queen at the parish church on the festival's closing Saturday, a centrepiece added in 1899 to a Riding of the Marches that began two years earlier for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Despite the name, the festival runs in June, nowhere near the ancient May Day Beltane; the Friday before, a fancy dress parade winds through town, and a Cornet leads mounted cavalcades checking the burgh's old boundaries.
Official site
Make a day of it: Traquair House Gardens
World Nettle Eating Championship
Likely Sat 19 JuneUsually on the Saturday nearest Midsummer; 2027 date not announced yet
Marshwood, Dorset
Competitors are handed two-foot lengths of stinging nettle and an hour to strip and eat as many leaves as possible, with the longest stripped stalk crowning that year's Nettle King or Queen. The Bottle Inn in Marshwood started the contest in 1986, and though the pub's closure forced a few years at a nearby cider farm, the championship returned home to Marshwood in 2025. A second prize goes to whoever grows the longest nettle nearby.
Find out more
Make a day of it: Lyme Regis , Charmouth, Golden Cap
Summer solstice at Stonehenge
Sun 20 – Mon 21 JuneAlways overnight into the summer solstice sunrise
Stonehenge, Wiltshire · Evening to sunrise · Free
English Heritage opens up the stones for one night each summer, letting everyone walk in among them instead of viewing from behind the rope. The car park opens around 7pm and the crowd waits for sunrise near 5am, then has until noon the next day to leave. Entry is free and needs no ticket, though it's a 1.5-mile walk from the visitor centre across uneven ground, and parking must be booked ahead.
Official site
Make a day of it: Bulford Kiwi, Old Sarum, Wilton House
Midsummer bonfires (Old Cornwall Societies)
Likely Wed 23 JuneUsually on Midsummer Eve, 23 June; 2027 date not announced yet
across Cornwall · After dark · Free
A chain of bonfires runs the length of Cornwall on Midsummer's Eve, from Chapel Carn Brea near Land's End, where the Mayor of St Just lights the first, east towards the Devon border. The Federation of Old Cornwall Societies has organised it since 1924; members bless it in Cornish and throw midsummer flowers on the flames, and small groups at each hilltop finish with a chorus of Trelawny, the Cornish anthem.
Official site
Make a day of it: Cape Cornwall , Land's End , Botallack Mine
Ceres Highland Games
Sat 26 JuneAlways on the last Saturday in June
Ceres, Fife
According to the games' own history, Robert the Bruce granted Ceres a charter to hold games after local men fought at Bannockburn in 1314, and they've run every year since, except for wartime and a 2020 pandemic gap. A pipe band leads a procession through the village before piping, dancing, wrestling and heavy events get under way on the Bow Butts; Ceres calls itself the oldest free games in Scotland.
Official site
Make a day of it: The Peat Inn
Golowan Festival and Mazey Day
Fri 18 – Sun 27 JuneAlways for ten days ending on the last Sunday in June, with Mazey Day the Saturday before
Penzance, Cornwall
Ten days of revived Cornish midsummer festivities build to Mazey Day, the Saturday climax, when people parade giant puppets through Penzance's streets and elect a satirical 'Mock Mayor'. A serpent dance follows a figure called Penglaz through the town, and the festival, revived in 1991 from the old Feast of St John, winds down the next day with the smaller Quay Fair.
Official site
Make a day of it: Mousehole , St Michael's Mount , St Ives
World Egg Throwing Championships
Sun 27 JuneConfirmed by the organisers
Swaton, Lincolnshire
Two rows of throwers and catchers face off across a field at Swaton Vintage Day, lobbing raw eggs further and further apart until someone drops one. The World Egg Throwing Federation has run its championships here since 2006, alongside relay and target rounds, plus 'egg roulette', where one egg in the batch is hard-boiled. The show itself grew out of a local vintage tractor gathering that started in 1994.
Official site
Make a day of it: Heckington Windmill
Warcop Rushbearing
Around 29 JuneUsually around St Peter's Day, 29 June; 2027 date not announced yet
Warcop, Cumbria
Girls in floral crowns and boys carrying crosses woven from rushes lead a procession through Warcop each summer, leaving the village at 2pm and stopping at Warcop Hall for refreshments before reaching St Columba's Church for a rushbearing service. The crosses and crowns are hung by the church's south door until the next year's lot are ready to take their place, and children's sports round off the afternoon.
Official site
Make a day of it: High Cup Nick , Appleby-in-Westmorland

In the wild

Hay meadows in flower June
Upland hay meadows reach full flower in June, thick with buttercup, wood crane's-bill and yellow rattle before the summer cut. The Yorkshire Dales holds some of the best surviving examples in the country.
Muker Meadows · Upper Teesdale
Chalk downland orchids June and July
Bee and pyramidal orchids flower on chalk grassland through June and July, the bee orchid's furred lip built to mimic a female bee. Both do best on land that has never been fertilised.
Old Winchester Hill · Noar Hill
Seabird cities May to early August, peak June
Gannets, guillemots, razorbills and kittiwakes crowd the cliffs through early summer, the noise and smell obvious well before you reach the edge. Bass Rock holds the world's largest colony of gannets.
Bass Rock · Bempton Cliffs
Water voles spring to autumn, easiest to see in June
Water voles, Britain's fastest-declining mammal a generation ago, are back on some rivers after reintroduction projects, plopping into the water at the first sign of movement on the bank.
Kielder Water · WWT Washington Wetland Centre

July 2027

Durham fills with miners' banners on the second Saturday, and the King's swans are counted along the Thames in the third week. In between there's pea shooting in Witcham and a straw race in Oxenhope.

Thu 15 July St Swithin's Day

Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod
Thu 1 – Sat 10 JulyConfirmed by the organisers
Llangollen, Denbighshire · Ticketed
Choirs and dance troupes come from across the world to compete for a week each July at Llangollen's Royal International Pavilion, first held in 1947 to build international ties through music rather than politics. The week includes a Parade of Nations through the streets, and the main prize, Choir of the World, has gone to singers from as far as the Philippines. Evening concerts with well-known performers run alongside the competitions.
Official site
Make a day of it: Pontcysyllte Aqueduct , Llangollen Wharf, Llangollen Bridge
Oxenhope Straw Race
Likely Sun 4 JulyUsually on the first Sunday in July; 2027 date not announced yet
Oxenhope, West Yorkshire
Pairs of runners haul a bale of straw around a two-and-a-half-mile course through Oxenhope, stopping at a run of village pubs for a pint along the way. The race began as a bet between two local farmers in the mid-1970s and has since raised well over £450,000 for local charities and good causes. The route starts at the Waggon and Horses and ends with a last uphill push to the Dog and Gun.
Official site
Make a day of it: Haworth , Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, Bronte Waterfall
Whalton Baal Fire
Sun 4 JulyAlways on 4 July, the old Midsummer Eve
Whalton, Northumberland · Evening · Free
On 4 July, Whalton lights a bonfire on the green outside the Beresford Arms at about 6:30pm to mark Old Midsummer Eve, the date it kept after Britain switched calendars in 1752 and lost eleven days. Local schoolchildren sing and dance around the flames while everyone else gathers for food and a drink. Historian Ronald Hutton notes that by 1900 Whalton was the only village left keeping a midsummer bale fire.
Official site
Make a day of it: Wallington
Durham Miners' Gala
Sat 10 JulyAlways on the second Saturday in July
Durham, County Durham · Free
Trade unionists from across the country march into Durham behind brass bands and painted union banners, some carried by the same branches for well over a century. The Durham Miners' Association has run what everyone calls the Big Meeting since 1871, when the coalfield's pits were working. Banner groups gather at the Market Place from 8.30am and head for the Old Racecourse; 2026's Gala was the 140th.
Official site
Make a day of it: Durham Cathedral , Prebends Bridge
Grasmere Rushbearing
Likely Sat 10 JulyUsually on the second Saturday in July; 2027 date not announced yet
Grasmere, Cumbria
Local schoolchildren carry poles and bearings woven with rushes and flowers in procession from the village school to St Oswald's Church, one of only a handful of Cumbrian churches still keeping the practice. It recalls the days when church floors were bare earth, covered with rushes that needed replacing regularly, before stone flagging became usual in the early 1800s. The ceremony now falls in mid-July, about a week after Ambleside holds its own rushbearing.
Official site
Make a day of it: Grasmere , Rydal Water , Lake District
World Pea Shooting Championships
Sat 10 JulyConfirmed by the organisers
Witcham, Cambridgeshire
Witcham's headmaster John Tyson started this contest in 1971, tired of confiscating peashooters from pupils. Competitors shoot dried maple peas by mouth at a putty-covered target twelve feet away, using a tube no longer than twelve inches, though the open category allows laser sights. The volunteer Witcham Events Committee runs it today, and 2026's contest was the 53rd.
Official site
Make a day of it: Ely Cathedral , Oliver Cromwell's House, Ely
Wenlock Olympian Games
Mid JulyUsually in mid July, with the main athletics on a weekend; 2027 date not announced yet
Much Wenlock, Shropshire
Long before Athens 1896, a Much Wenlock doctor named William Penny Brookes was already running his own games, mixing running and cricket with quoits and penny-farthing races, meant to encourage moral, physical and intellectual improvement. Pierre de Coubertin came to watch in 1890 and later credited Brookes as an inspiration when he founded the modern Olympic movement. The Wenlock Olympian Society carries on with games across Shropshire each summer, 2026 marking its 140th.
Official site
Make a day of it: The Iron Bridge , Wenlock Edge , The Wrekin
Swan Upping
Likely Mon 12 – Fri 16 JulyUsually from Monday to Friday in the third week of July; 2027 dates not announced yet
the Thames, Sunbury to Abingdon · Free to watch from the bank
The King's Swan Marker leads a flotilla of skiffs upriver from Sunbury to Abingdon over five days, joined by Swan Uppers from the Vintners' and Dyers' livery companies, whose rights to the Thames's mute swans date to the 15th century, in scarlet uniforms. They catch, weigh and health-check young cygnets before returning them to the water. The Crown has claimed unmarked swans since the 12th century, once banquet food, not a protected sight.
Official site
Make a day of it: Hampton Court Palace , Richmond Park , Kew Gardens
Tolpuddle Martyrs' Festival
Likely Fri 16 – Sun 18 JulyUsually over the third weekend in July; 2027 dates not announced yet
Tolpuddle, Dorset
Six farm labourers from this village were sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia in 1834, not for forming an early trade union, already legal, but for the secret oath they swore to join it. Public protest won George Loveless and the other five a pardon and passage home, and the TUC-organised festival now remembers them with union banners, speeches and music across the fields where they worked, drawing almost 5,000 people yearly.
Official site
Make a day of it: Milton Abbas, Dorset National Landscape, Dorchester
World Snail Racing Championships
JulyUsually on a Saturday in July; 2027 date not announced yet
Congham, Norfolk
More than two hundred snails are set down in the middle of a circle facing outward and left to find their own way to the rim. The course record, thirteen inches in two minutes, has stood since a snail called Archie set it in 1995. Founder Tom Elwes started the contest in the 1960s after seeing a similar race in France, and it raises money for the village church as part of the fete.
Official site
Make a day of it: Sandringham House , Castle Rising Castle, King's Lynn
Royal Welsh Show
Mon 19 – Thu 22 JulyConfirmed by the organisers
Llanelwedd, Powys · Ticketed
Livestock breeders bring around seven thousand cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and horses to Llanelwedd for four days of judging, often billed as the largest agricultural show in Europe. The Royal Welsh Agricultural Society has run it since 1904, alongside forestry, horticulture and countryside sports competitions, food halls and a full programme in the main ring. More than two hundred thousand people come through the gates each year, with 2027's show already confirmed for 19-22 July.
Official site
Ebernoe Horn Fair
Sun 25 JulyAlways on 25 July, St James's Day
Ebernoe Common, West Sussex
Cricketers from Ebernoe take on a neighbouring village every 25 July while two sheep, given by the Petworth Estate, turn on a spit nearby, roasting through the afternoon. Whoever scores the most runs is presented with the sheep's horns by Lord Egremont, and mutton is shared round for everyone after. The fair was revived in 1864 after a long lapse and has run most years since, missing only the two world wars and 2020.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Petworth House , South Downs , Petworth
Honiton Hot Pennies
Likely Tue 27 JulyUsually on the second Tuesday after 19 July; 2027 date not announced yet
Honiton, Devon · Free
A 1247 charter fixed Honiton's summer fair on the eve and feast of St Margaret, and it opens with a town crier hoisting a pole topped with a gilded glove above the High Street, declaring that no one can be arrested for debt while it flies. Shopkeepers and pub landlords then lean from upstairs windows to scatter warm pennies into the crowd, who scramble to catch them with hats, buckets and cupped hands.
Official site
Make a day of it: The PIG-at Combe, The Luppitt Inn, Broadhembury
Langholm Common Riding
Fri 30 JulyAlways on the last Friday in July
Langholm, Dumfries and Galloway
A young rider called the Cornet, chosen by public vote each May, leads horseback processions round Langholm's boundaries, reasserting rights the town won from the Duke of Buccleuch in 1759. Marchers carry four old emblems — a barley bannock and salted herring on a pole, a spade recalling the old boundary stones, a giant thistle and a crown; hound trailing, horse racing and Highland dancing fill out the day.
Official site

In the wild

Basking sharks May to September, peak July and August
The world's second-largest fish, basking sharks feed at the surface off western coasts each summer, mouths wide open to filter plankton. The Hebrides are among the most reliable places to see them.
Isle of Mull · Isle of Coll
Dolphins at Chanonry Point all year, most reliable late May to September on a rising tide
Bottlenose dolphins hunt salmon in the narrow channel off Chanonry Point, sometimes within metres of the shore. Sightings run all year, most reliable from late May to September on a rising tide.
Chanonry Point · Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre
Glow-worms late June and July
Female glow-worms glow soft green from grassy banks on warm, dark nights to draw in flying males, a beetle rather than a worm despite the name. Late June and July are best.
Noar Hill · Ketton Quarries

August 2027

Late summer is show and games season, from Grasmere's fell races to the Highland gatherings. Over the bank holiday weekend, people snorkel through a Welsh bog for a world title.

Sun 1 August Lammas (Lughnasadh), the first-loaf harvest festival

National Eisteddfod of Wales
Sat 31 July – Sat 7 AugustConfirmed by the organisers
Around Glantwymyn, Powys, in 2027 · Ticketed
Wales's biggest Welsh-language festival moves to a new part of the country each time it's held, and in 2027 that's Glantwymyn, a rural stretch of the Dyfi valley in Powys reaching into south Meirionnydd. Competitions in poetry and music, judged entirely in Welsh, fill a tented showground called the Maes, drawing more than 100,000 visitors and over 6,000 competitors. It's the first time the festival has centred on this corner of Powys since 2009.
Official site
Make a day of it: Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas Memorial
World Toe Wrestling Championship
SummerUsually on a Saturday in summer; the date and venue move around; 2027 date not announced yet
Ashbourne, Derbyshire
Competitors go barefoot, lock big toes and try to force each other's foot sideways off a raised board, both hands flat on the ground. Regulars at a Wetton pub invented the sport in 1974, hoping to create one event Britain could actually win — a Canadian took the first title anyway. The championship has since moved between Staffordshire, a Derbyshire pub and Ashbourne's Market Place, so it's worth checking where it lands each year.
Official site
Make a day of it: Dovedale , Thor's Cave , Manifold Valley
Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Show
Tue 3 AugustConfirmed by the organisers
Egton Bridge, North Yorkshire
Growers around Egton Bridge spend the year coaxing single berries to record size for the first Tuesday in August, when the Old Gooseberry Society weighs them out in the old units of drams and grains. It has run since 1800, the oldest surviving gooseberry show in the country, and in 2025 Graeme Watson broke the world record with a yellow berry weighing 65.3 grams, his fourteenth title; the show is free, open from 2pm.
Official site
Make a day of it: North York Moors , Runswick Bay , Whitby
St Andrews Lammas Market
Likely Fri 6 – Tue 10 AugustUsually from Friday to Tuesday around the second Monday in August; 2027 dates not announced yet
St Andrews, Fife · Free entry
Market Street and part of South Street fill with fairground rides and stalls for Scotland's oldest street fair, running back to the Middle Ages. Lammas takes its name from 'loaf mass', the old blessing of bread baked from the first wheat of the harvest. St Andrews and Inverkeithing are the only two Scottish towns with a Lammas fair left.
Official site
Make a day of it: St Andrews Cathedral , West Sands, St Andrews, The Peat Inn
The Burryman
Fri 13 AugustAlways on the second Friday in August
South Queensferry, City of Edinburgh · All day, from about 9am · Free
For nine hours on Ferry Fair Friday, a local man walks seven miles round South Queensferry dressed head to ankle in burrs, around 11,000 of them, topped with flowers. Two attendants keep his arms held out, since the burr suit is packed too tight to bend, while pub regulars offer whisky through a straw at each stop. Its origin is disputed: an old 1687 charter, or the aftermath of a 1746 battle.
Official site
Make a day of it: Forth Bridge Viewpoint, Craigies Farm, Hopetoun House
Hastings Old Town Carnival Week
Likely Sat 7 – Sun 15 AugustUsually for a week around Carnival Day, the second Saturday in August; 2027 dates not announced yet
Hastings, East Sussex · Free
Pram races, a seaboot race and the Jimmy Read memorial bike sprint up steep Crown Lane build to the Grand Carnival Procession on the second Saturday of August. The carnival began in 1969, when Old Town residents broke away to run their own event, keeping the Carnival Queen title 'Miss Hastings' even as the original Hastings Carnival declined; 'Mr Hastings' joined in 2018. The week closes with a Blessing of the Sea.
Official site
Make a day of it: Battle Abbey , Hastings Country Park, Fairlight Glen
Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival
Likely Sat 14 – Sun 22 AugustUsually for nine days from the second Saturday in August; 2027 dates not announced yet
Kettlewell, North Yorkshire
Kettlewell fills its gardens, walls and doorways with homemade scarecrows for a trail that began almost by accident in 1994, when the village put together more than a hundred figures to raise money for the local Church of England school. It has returned every August since, with a different theme each year — 2026's paired 'thrillers' with 'competition'.
Official site
Make a day of it: Kilnsey Crag , Gordale Scar , Malham Cove
Marhamchurch Revel
Likely Mon 16 AugustUsually on the Monday on or after 12 August; 2027 date not announced yet
Marhamchurch, Cornwall
A secretly-cast Father Time crowns a new Queen of the Revel every August, traditionally a pupil of Marhamchurch's Church of England Academy, at the old cell by the church where St Marwenne, said to have founded the village, once lived. She leads an afternoon procession from there on a white pony, before Cornish wrestling, fancy dress and dancing take over the Revel Ground, with posies and cream teas sold to keep the day going.
Organisers on Facebook
Make a day of it: Bude Sea Pool, Morwenstow
Cilgerran Coracle Races
Likely Sat 21 AugustUsually on the last Saturday of Cilgerran's festive week, around 19 August; 2027 date not announced yet
Cilgerran, Pembrokeshire
Paddlers race single-person coracles, small round basketwork boats traditionally used by Teifi netsmen to fish for salmon and sewin, down the river below Cilgerran Castle. It closes out Cilgerran Festive Week, a village-wide celebration going back to 1950, with heats for men, women, juniors and novices and a race reserved for the over-60s. Thought to be the longest-running coracle regatta in Britain, the races draw paddlers and spectators from well beyond the village.
Official site
Make a day of it: Pentre Ifan , Cardigan, Ceibwr Bay
Marymass Festival
Sat 21 AugustAlways on Marymass Saturday, the third Saturday after the first Monday in August
Irvine, North Ayrshire
Marymass Saturday closes out Irvine's festival week with a horse-drawn procession leaving Golffields Road at 10am and reaching the Townhouse by noon, where a Marymass Queen is crowned, a role filled every year since 1928. No motorised vehicles are allowed, making it one of Scotland's largest processions of horses and carts, organised by the Irvine Carters' Society, formed in 1753. Games on the Moor follow, including a greasy pole climb for a ham.
Official site
Make a day of it: Saltcoats Beach, Troon South Beach
Race the Train
Sat 21 AugustConfirmed by the organisers
Tywyn, Gwynedd
Runners try to beat a steam train from Tywyn to the hills and back, racing the Talyllyn Railway over fourteen miles of Welsh coast and countryside on the main Rotary Challenge race. A local dentist, Godfrey Worsey, started it in 1984 with 48 runners; by the following year that had grown to 250. Spectators can ride alongside on the train itself, and Tywyn Rotary Club runs the race for good causes locally.
Official site
Make a day of it: Aberdyfi, Ynyslas Dunes, Bird Rock
Saddleworth Rushcart
Likely Sat 21 – Sun 22 AugustListed for 2027 but not yet confirmed by the organisers
Uppermill, Greater Manchester
Morris dancers from dozens of sides converge on Saddleworth on the third Saturday after 5 August, dancing a two-ton cart piled with moorland rushes toward Uppermill. A rider called the jockey sits on top, chosen for long service to Saddleworth Morris Men, who revived the custom in 1975 after it had died out. The rushes go into St Chad's Church on the Sunday, and 2026's rushcart, the 50th since revival, drew a record 28 sides.
Official site
Make a day of it: Saddleworth Museum, Dobcross, Dove Stone Reservoir
Doggett's Coat and Badge Race
Late summerUsually on a weekday in summer, timed to the tide; 2027 date not announced yet
The Thames, London Bridge to Chelsea
Thomas Doggett, an actor who managed Drury Lane theatre, put up a prize in 1715 for apprentice watermen to race for on the Thames: a scarlet coat and silver badge, for keeps. Raced today from London Bridge to Chelsea by newly qualified watermen, it counts as the oldest annually contested rowing race anywhere. Up to six watermen row the course, just under five miles; the 2026 winner covered it in 28 minutes 29 seconds.
Official site
Make a day of it: Tower Bridge , Tower of London , St Paul's Cathedral
Cowal Highland Gathering
Thu 26 – Sat 28 AugustConfirmed by the organisers
Dunoon, Argyll and Bute · Ticketed
Highland dancers, pipe bands and heavyweight throwers take over Dunoon Stadium each summer, drawing around 20,000 people for events including the World Highland Dancing Championships and the Cowal Pipe Band Championship. Robert Cameron organised the first proper gathering in 1894, though informal games in the town go back to at least 1871. Alongside the competitions there's a mountain bike track, axe throwing and fireworks to close the day.
Official site
Make a day of it: Gourock Outdoor Pool, Puck's Glen, Lyle Hill Viewpoint
Lonach Highland Gathering
Sat 28 AugustConfirmed by the organisers
Strathdon, Aberdeenshire · Ticketed
Raised in 1823 by Sir Charles Forbes of Newe and Edinglassie, the Lonach Highlanders march through Strathdon behind their pipers before the games get under way at Bellabeg Park on the fourth Saturday of August. The day runs from hill races and solo piping to heavy events and highland dancing, all watched over by the current baronet as patron, the eighth in that line since the society was founded.
Official site
Make a day of it: Kildrummy Castle Gardens
World Bog Snorkelling Championships
Likely Sun 29 AugustUsually on the Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend; 2027 date not announced yet
Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys
Competitors flipper their way along two lengths of a 55-metre trench cut fresh through the Waen Rhydd peat bog, masks and snorkels on, conventional swimming strokes banned, for a title first contested in 1988. Bath swimmer Neil Rutter won his sixth world title here in 2025, after coming out of retirement to do it.
Official site
Make a day of it: Capel Soar y Mynydd
Grasmere Lakeland Sports and Show
Sun 29 AugustConfirmed by the organisers
Grasmere, Cumbria · Ticketed
Fell runners, hound trails and Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling have filled the show field on the Sunday of the August bank holiday since 1868, growing out of the village's old sheep fair. The Guides Race, a punishing run up the fellside and back, has been the star turn since that first meeting; only the two world wars have stopped the show running, and admission at the gate is free.
Official site
Make a day of it: Grasmere , Lake District , Rydal Water
Football in the River
Mon 30 AugustAlways on the August bank holiday Monday
Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire · Afternoon · Free
Bourton Rovers players split into two teams and play a full football match ankle-deep in the River Windrush, which runs through the village, every August bank holiday Monday. Spectators pack the bridges and both banks to watch a fixture going back to the early twentieth century that now raises money for the grassroots club. Kick-off is at 2pm, and it costs nothing to watch.
Official site
Make a day of it: Lower Slaughter, Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter
World Gravy Wrestling Championships
Likely Mon 30 AugustUsually on the August bank holiday Monday; 2027 date not announced yet
Bacup, Lancashire
Two-minute bouts in a shallow pool of fake gravy, thickened with cornflour and coloured with caramel after the real stuff once drew wasps, have raised money for charity in the Rossendale valley since 2007, when it began in Stacksteads. Wrestlers are marked on technique, though most people turn out for the fancy dress and showmanship. Around 1,500 litres go into the pool each time at Bacup Cricket Club, a Guinness World Record holder since 2019.
Official site
Make a day of it: Towneley Park, Stoodley Pike Monument, Peel Tower, Holcombe Hill

In the wild

Heather in bloom late July to September, peak August
Moorland turns purple as ling and bell heather flower together, usually from late July with the best show in August. The North York Moors holds England's largest expanse of heather moorland.
North York Moors · Peak District
The Perseids peak night of 12-13 August
The Perseid meteor shower peaks around 12-13 August, with dozens of shooting stars an hour possible under a clear, dark sky. Britain's dark sky parks and reserves give the best chance of a good view.
Northumberland National Park · Exmoor · Eryri
Heathland reptiles spring to autumn, best on warm summer mornings
Southern heathland is home to all six native reptiles, including the rare sand lizard and smooth snake, basking in warm patches through summer. Early morning is often best, before people and dogs disturb the paths.
Arne · New Forest

September 2027

The summer crowds thin out and the old fairs come back. Widecombe Fair fills a field high on Dartmoor, and in Sussex the bonfire societies begin their autumn of torchlit Saturdays.

Thu 23 September Autumn equinox
Wed 29 September Michaelmas, the old quarter day

Braemar Gathering
Sat 4 SeptemberConfirmed by the organisers
Braemar, Aberdeenshire · Ticketed
Pipers, Highland dancers and tossers of the caber compete on the games field at what the Braemar Royal Highland Society has run since 1832, though gatherings on Deeside are reckoned to go back over 900 years, to the days of King Malcolm Canmore. Queen Victoria first came in 1848, and a monarch or senior royal has attended most years since, helping make it one of the biggest Highland games anywhere.
Official site
Make a day of it: Deeside and Lochnagar, Linn of Dee, Carn a' Choire Bhoidheach
World Stone Skimming Championships
Likely Sat 4 SeptemberUsually on the first Saturday in September; 2027 date not announced yet
Easdale Island, Argyll and Bute · Entry by ballot
Only naturally occurring Easdale slate is allowed, no wider than three inches, and a throw only counts once the stone has bounced twice. A one-off contest here in 1983 grew into today's annual championship in 1997, run by the island's development trust for the harbour, hall and museum, with tickets now given out by ballot. In 2025 several entrants were disqualified after judges found their stones had smoothed, machine-shaped edges.
Official site
Make a day of it: Ellenabeich, Isle of Seil, Clachan Bridge
Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
Mon 6 SeptemberAlways on Wakes Monday, the first Monday after 4 September
Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire · From 8am, all day
Six dancers called the Deer-men collect a set of reindeer antlers from St Nicholas' Church at eight in the morning and carry them close to ten miles around Abbots Bromley and its outlying farms, returning them by evening. A Fool, a Hobby Horse, a bowman and Maid Marian go with them, all following a single melodeon player; records trace the dance back to a fair held in 1226.
Official site
Make a day of it: Katyn Memorial, Cannock Chase, Sudbury Hall, National Memorial Arboretum
Whitstable Oyster Festival
Likely Fri 10 – Sun 12 SeptemberUsually over a Friday-to-Sunday weekend in mid September; 2027 dates not announced yet
Whitstable, Kent
Fishermen once marked the start of the oyster season by landing the first catch on the beach and having it blessed, a custom recorded as far back as 1657. The festival, reimagined as Whitstable Rocks in 2022, keeps that Landing of the Oysters ceremony alongside a weekend of live music, street food and a samba band procession along the seafront. Most of the programme is free, spread across Long Beach and the town's Grading Shed.
Official site
Make a day of it: Canterbury Cathedral , Mount Ephraim Gardens, Faversham
World Black Pudding Throwing Championships
Likely Sun 12 SeptemberUsually on the second Sunday in September; 2027 date not announced yet
Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester · Free to watch
Three black puddings, wrapped in stockings to hold them together, get thrown underarm at a stack of Yorkshire puddings balanced twenty feet up a scaffold on Bridge Street. Entrants have travelled from as far as Japan, Peru, Canada and Australia, and money raised goes to Bury Hospice and the Ramsbottom Pantry. The 2025 contest very nearly didn't happen after long-time organiser Phil Taylor died, until local volunteers stepped in to run it in his memory.
Official site
Make a day of it: Peel Tower, Holcombe Hill
Widecombe Fair
Tue 14 SeptemberAlways on the second Tuesday in September
Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon · Ticketed
Cattle, sheep and ponies go into the judging rings on Dartmoor much as they did when the fair began in 1850. Its fame rests on an older folk song about Tom Pearce lending his grey mare so Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer and the rest could reach the fair — 'Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all', now shorthand for an impossibly long guest list; Tom Cobley was a real farmer, from Spreyton, north of Widecombe.
Official site
Make a day of it: Hound Tor , Haytor , Dartmoor
Egremont Crab Fair and the World Gurning Championship
Sat 18 SeptemberAlways on the third Saturday in September
Egremont, Cumbria · Gurning in the evening
The fair's name recalls an old practice: the Lord of Egremont handing out crab apples at harvest time, echoed today when sweeter ones are thrown to onlookers down Main Street. The main event now is the World Gurning Championship, where entrants pull the most grotesque face they can manage through a horse collar called a braffin. Climbers who reach the top of the 30-foot greasy pole win a side of mutton, the prize since 1852.
Official site
Make a day of it: St Bees Head , Ennerdale Water , St Bees
Painswick Clypping (and Puppy Dog Pie)
Sun 19 SeptemberAlways on the first Sunday on or after 19 September
Painswick, Gloucestershire
Hand in hand, the congregation rings St Mary's completely and sings a hymn while 'clypping' the church, an old word for embracing. The church itself says it has no idea how old the practice is, only that it became a fixed yearly date in Victorian times. The Painswick Feast that follows serves a dish called Puppy Dog Pie, no dog involved and nobody quite sure why it's named that, alongside street entertainment and apple pressing.
Official site
Make a day of it: Gloucester Cathedral , Painswick Rococo Garden, Painswick Beacon

In the wild

Pink-footed geese arrive late September into October, from Iceland and Greenland
Skeins of geese arrive from Iceland through late September and October, filling the sky with honking calls at dawn and dusk. Tens of thousands can gather at the biggest roosts.
Holkham · Martin Mere, Burscough · Montrose Basin Wildlife Centre
Salmon leaping upstream May to September in the far north, September to November further south, best after rain
Atlantic salmon fight their way upstream to spawn, leaping falls and weirs in bursts of silver. Timing depends on rain and river, running from early summer in the far north to late autumn further south.
Falls of Shin · Stainforth Force
Autumn migration along the coast peaks in September
Huge numbers of swallows and house martins pass along the coast on their way south, sometimes tens of thousands in a single day. Clear, calm mornings after a north wind bring the biggest movements.
Spurn · Gibraltar Point

Something missing?

This is a first pass at Britain's calendar of customs, and there are hundreds more small ones out there: village garland days, parish ceremonies, the local bonfire society's big night. If one near you deserves a place, or a date here has moved, tell us. For the deep end, the folklore enthusiasts at Calendar Customs have been cataloguing these for years.

The rest of the Albion Guide is organised by place: once you've picked a day out, the map shows what else is around.

The year in Albion

Coming up

Sussex bonfire season

Hull Fair

Royal National Mòd

Hastings Bonfire (Hastings Borough Bonfire Society)

World's Biggest Liar

Punkie Night

Samhuinn Fire Festival (Beltane Fire Society)

Earlier this month

World Porridge Making Championship (the Golden Spurtle)

Nottingham Goose Fair

Wasdale Head Show and Shepherds' Meet

Stratford Mop Fair

World Conker Championships

Tavistock Goosey Fair

Lewes Bonfire Night

Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels

Turning the Devil's Stone

Battle Bonfire (Battel Bonfire Boyes)

Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival

Edenbridge Bonfire and its celebrity guy

Wroth Silver ceremony

Hatherleigh Carnival flaming tar barrels

Lord Mayor's Show

Real Ale Wobble

Rye Bonfire

Earlier this month

Tenbury Mistletoe Festival and auctions

Mari Lwyd at St Fagans

Holy Thorn cutting ceremony

Hoodening (the Hooden Horse)

Burning the Clocks

Montol Festival

Winter solstice at Stonehenge (managed open access)

Tom Bawcock's Eve

The Devil's Knell

Kirkwall Ba'

Grenoside Sword Dance

Marshfield Paper Boys (mummers)

Tenby Boxing Day Swim

Allendale Tar Bar'l

Biggar Hogmanay Bonfire

Comrie Flambeaux

Nos Galan Road Race

Stonehaven Fireballs

Stromness Yule Log Pull

Earlier this month

Loony Dook

Haxey Hood

Scalloway Fire Festival

Burning the Clavie

Hen Galan (the old New Year)

Carhampton apple wassail

Goathland Plough Stots

Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival

Whimple Wassail

Chepstow Wassail and Mari Lwyd

Up Helly Aa

Earlier this month

Hurling the Silver Ball, St Ives

Alnwick Shrovetide Football

Royal Shrovetide Football

Atherstone Ball Game

Olney Pancake Race

Scarborough Skipping Day

Sedgefield Ball Game

Hurling the Silver Ball, St Columb Major

Jedburgh Ba' Game

King's Lynn Mart

Earlier this month

National St David's Day Parade

Whuppity Scoorie

St Piran's Day on Perran Sands

UK Wife Carrying Race

Kiplingcotes Derby

Tichborne Dole

Pace Egg plays at Midgley and Heptonstall

Uppies and Downies

British and World Marbles Championship