Arundel Festival
Ten August days and over 200 events transform this castle town into a celebration of music, drama, street art and bathtub racing, with Shakespeare performed in the Arundel Castle gardens each evening as the sun goes down.
Arundel earns a full day without effort: a Grade I Norman castle, a soaring Victorian Gothic cathedral, CAMRA-listed pubs, a monthly farmers market, and a direct train from London make it one of the most complete and honestly rewarding small towns in southern England.
Cottages, B&Bs and hotels near Arundel, West Sussex.
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"Sixteen days of classical music, jazz and spoken word in the churches, halls and historic spaces of a handsome Sussex market town. Sheku Kanneh-Mason among the 2026 headliners."
Petworth Summer Festival
"The Findon Village Gardens Association fills the hall with prize blooms, vegetables, baking and handicrafts in a friendly South Downs show that has been a fixture of village life for decades."
Findon Village Summer Flower Show
"The Goodwood motor circuit returns to its 1948 specification each September for a three-day historic racing meeting where spectators and competitors alike wear period dress, the paddock smells of Castrol R, and ERA and pre-war Bentley machinery is raced in anger as though the last seventy years had not happened."
Goodwood Revival
"A South Downs village fair that has been trading sheep since the 12th century, still entirely about the sheep, still held on the village green, and still rather pleased with itself about both."
Findon Sheep Fair
"The narrow streets of this West Sussex market town host a makers Christmas market each late November in the shadow of Petworth House's vast estate wall, a properly artisan alternative to the big city versions with only locally produced gifts on offer."
Petworth Christmas Market
"Over 110,000 tulips in 120 varieties bloom across the 38-acre grounds of a medieval ducal castle, creating one of the largest spring bulb displays in Europe."
Arundel Castle Tulip Festival
"For 16 September days, hundreds of artists and makers open studios, homes and galleries across the Lewes District villages from Lewes to Seaford, Newhaven and the surrounding countryside in its 32nd year as the South East's most accessible open art festival."
Artwave Festival
"Ten days of author talks, debates and performances filling the regatta town of Henley-on-Thames each October, one of England's most distinguished literary festivals in one of its most beautiful river settings."
Henley Literary Festival
"Two weeks of classical concerts, theatre, circus, talks and family events filling Canterbury Cathedral and historic venues across this ancient city, one of England's longest-running arts festivals and the cultural heartbeat of Kent each autumn."
Canterbury Festival
"Britain's oldest and largest open studios festival, Oxfordshire Artweeks unlocks over a thousand artists' homes, rural studios, Cotswold village halls, and historic gardens across the county for three free weeks each May."
Oxfordshire Artweeks
"For 16 June days, 152 artists across Surrey open their studios, gardens, barns and homes as galleries, with self-guided village art trails including the Hindhead Art Trail guiding visitors through the county's creative heartland."
Surrey Artists Open Studios
"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