Allen Valleys Folk Festival
A volunteer run weekend of folk in a North Pennine village that climaxes with the marketplace burning of a wooden sculpture of the legendary Allendale Wolf.
A handsome North Pennines stone market village with a working Co-op, its own bakery, a brewery, and the annual Tar Barl fire festival to its name - modest in scale but genuinely self-sufficient and worth the detour from Hexham.
Cottages, B&Bs and hotels near Allendale, Northumberland.
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"A classic upland agricultural show on the Allendale showfield celebrating the livestock, horticultural, and rural craft traditions of the North Pennine Dales."
Allendale Show
"A beloved North Tynedale agricultural show at the heart of Northumberland's most remote market town, celebrating 100 years of Kielder Forest in 2026 with inter-farm challenges, vintage vehicles, and livestock classes."
Bellingham Show
"Deep in the Northumberland countryside, a riotous one-day festival with terrier racing, live bands, Northumbrian piping, traditional wrestling, a dog show and fell racing, with the 2026 theme celebrating 100 years of Kielder Forest."
Bellingham Show and Country Festival
"A border shepherd's show in the shadow of the Cheviots, one of Northumberland's most traditional agricultural gatherings, with Cheviot sheep, cattle, horses and the Border hills right there on the horizon."
Glendale Show
"A tiny Northumberland hamlet between Alnwick and Craster springs to life each August Bank Holiday with a scarecrow trail quiz, tombola, sausage sizzle and refreshments raising funds for the village hall and church."
Rennington Scarecrow Festival
"Five days of classical music, recitals and choral performances in and around the magnificent 7th-century Hexham Abbey, one of the finest ecclesiastical settings for live music in northern England."
Hexham Abbey Festival of Music and Arts
"A screen-free family festival of wild freedom and glittering wonder where woodland glades, campfires and circus turn a Cheshire estate into a storybook."
Just So Festival
"One of England's most singular calendar customs, this centuries-old West Witton rite sees a chanting crowd carry a glowing-eyed effigy of 'Bartle' through the village at nightfall before stabbing and burning him on the hillside above Wensleydale."
Burning Bartle
"An effigy is carried through the Wensleydale village to a rhyme before being burned, origins long lost."
Burning of Old Bartle
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Over a hundred concerts plus rapper, clog and Morris teams spill through a clifftop fishing town for a full week of song, dance, shanties and storytelling."
Whitby Folk Week
"A historic East Yorkshire village spreads concerts across its Civic Hall, parish church and local pubs over the Bank Holiday weekend."
Cottingham Folk Festival
"England's only festival of medieval music fills fourteenth century Bolton Castle and its church with lute, oud and bagpipe as performers explore the forgotten margins of the medieval world."
Medieval Music in the Dales