"A purpose-built opera house in a Cotswolds village presents Wagner, Handel, Verdi and Humperdinck across a full summer season, one of the UK's most ambitious small opera festivals in a setting of extraordinary rural beauty."
Longborough Festival Opera
"A cliff-top open-air theatre carved from Cornish granite above Porthcurno Bay, where productions from Shakespeare to musicals run each summer with the Atlantic as backdrop and Rowena Cade's extraordinary creation as the stage."
Minack Theatre Season
"Over 330 artists open bars, barns, cafes, churches and hallways across Warwickshire and Coventry for two weeks, creating a self-guided trail through villages and towns where you can meet makers working in their own spaces."
Warwickshire Open Studios Summer Art Weeks
"Chester's Victorian park hosts a full summer season of theatre from late June through early September, with Shakespeare, new writing and family shows performed in an intimate outdoor setting a short walk from the city walls."
Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre
"A full village wakes week combining four dressed wells, a scarecrow trail, a carnival parade, wakes royalty crowning, and a car boot sale in one of the Hope Valley's most community-spirited annual gatherings."
Hope Wakes and Well Dressing
"This moorland village at the foot of Kinder Scout dresses its wells with intricate petal-and-clay panels each late June, turning the stone streets of this northern Peak District gateway into a week of living art."
Hayfield Well Dressing
"Jedburgh's week-long civic festival centres on the Callant who leads the mounted cavalcade on the Redeswire Ride commemorating a historic border skirmish, culminating in Festival Day with the Jedburgh Border Games."
Jedburgh Callants Festival
"Three days of curated music, theatre, comedy, literature and family events in the historic grounds of Repton School and village, a South Derbyshire market town with 1,400 years of history as a quiet setting for a quietly brilliant festival."
Repton Festival
"One of Britain's oldest agricultural shows, held at the historic Salesbury Hall estate near Ribchester, packing three days with showjumping, heavyweight livestock, falconry, and the famously competitive Shetland Pony Grand National."
Royal Lancashire Agricultural Show
"A volunteer-run, free-entry community festival on Tenterden Recreation Ground blending live music, stalls, a dog show and family entertainment in the heart of the Weald."
Spirit of Tenterden Festival
"A two-day showground spectacular at Thornly Hall Farm featuring livestock competitions, show jumping, monster trucks, Shetland pony racing, and a fun dog show for all the family."
Durham County Show
"A two-day seaside carnival lighting up the streets of Newquay each summer with floats, processions, and community fun."
Newquay Carnival
"Herefordshire's biggest country show packs steam engines, classic vehicles, country pursuits and local produce into one action-packed arena day at Burgess Farm."
Bromyard Gala
"Dating back to 1855, this community-run East Yorkshire show brings together livestock, horses, crafts and countryside entertainment at the Ashes Playing Fields in Howden."
Howden Show
"The showground at Sutton on the Forest in the Vale of York hosts one of North Yorkshire's most charming traditional agricultural shows, a family day of livestock, show jumping and produce set in the flat pastoral country between the Moors and the Dales."
Huby and Sutton Show
"Hundreds of lovingly restored classic Minis gather on the Glenarm Castle estate in support of cancer care."
Norn Iron Classic Minis at Glenarm Castle
"Rummage for vintage finds inside the historic Town Hall of one of England's smallest towns, with a veg stall tucked out front."
Bishop's Castle Antiques and Flea Market
"A small village market on the green in one of the prettiest villages in the Howardian Hills. Every first Saturday of the month."
Hovingham Farmers Market
"Now in its third decade, every stall on the Quay is run by the Devon grower or cook who made the produce, rain, shine, snow or wind."
Kingsbridge Farmers' Market
"A tiny Somerset Levels village hall market run by the parish church, serving bacon butties and toasted tea-cakes alongside organic lamb and Burrow Hill cider."
North Curry Produce Market
"Fifty-plus stalls of crafts and provisions spill across the Village Green while young local entrepreneurs hawk their wares and buskers play."
Ruddington Village Market
"A FARMA national award winner where over thirty producers fill the Georgian market square with food reared or made within fifty miles."
Stokesley Farmers' Market
"First Saturday of the month on the Memorial Gardens, with local produce, music and the steep stone streets of a former lead mining town climbing away on every side."
Wirksworth Farmers' Market
"A neighbourhood that takes its food seriously, doing what neighbourhoods should do on the first Sunday morning of every month."
Chapel Allerton Farmers Market
"A curated destination street market closing the streets of this creative Somerset town for contemporary designers, makers, vintage and street food."
The Frome Independent
"A brand-new RHS show debuts in the sweeping deer park of the Badminton Estate, with award-winning show gardens, a lakeside restaurant and talks from leading horticultural names."
RHS Badminton Flower Show
"Six opera productions, including four world premieres, fill Buxton Opera House and the Pavilion Gardens across 18 July days, making this Peak District spa town's festival one of the most ambitious programmes of rare and new opera anywhere in Britain."
Buxton International Festival
"A no-budget, volunteer-run festival of innovative folk on three stages at Abbey Mill on the banks of the Wye, billed as the antithesis of and remedy for the X Factor."
Folk on the Lawn
"Celebrating its 40th year, this small friendly festival pairs a top folk line-up with real ale, morris displays and ceilidhs in the shadow of Ely's cathedral."
Ely Folk Festival
"A volunteer-run festival keeping South Cumbrian folk-arts, clog dance and storytelling alive, spilling out from the Hope and Anchor pub into the streets of Ulverston."
Furness Tradition
"Irvinestown's beloved 46-year tradition fills 10 July days with donkey derbies, truck convoys, street entertainment and open-air dances rooted in the folklore of Lower Lough Erne."
Lady of the Lake Festival
"A warm celebration of Northumbrian piping, fiddle and song spread across the village green, church and pubs of Rothbury, with ceilidhs and a free outdoor stage."
Rothbury Traditional Music Festival
"A 36th-year coastal festival that crowns the weekend with an Aqua Ceilidh in the open-air pool and a World Paper'n'Comb Championship alongside top trad acts."
Stonehaven Folk Festival
"A true island adventure to the white sands of the Hebridean isle nicknamed the Hawaii of the North, where Celtic music meets surf, sunshine and a tiny community."
Tiree Music Festival
"The East Sussex town built on the field of Hastings fills its streets and gardens with scarecrows for two weeks each July, a festival that plays with the history of battle and Norman conquest while somehow ending up being extremely cheerful."
Battle Scarecrow Festival
"A single great panel on Great Longstone's village green each July displays extraordinary craftsmanship from petals, seeds and bark pressed into clay, with a second children's board made entirely by young villagers."
Great Longstone Well Dressing