Battle Scarecrow 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.
A proper historic market town rather than a quiet village, Battle punches well above its size with a medieval abbey, a working brewery taproom in the Good Beer Guide, multiple characterful pubs, a well-regarded bakery-cafe, direct trains from London, and a year-round events calendar that keeps it genuinely alive.
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"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
"One of the earliest events of the Sussex bonfire season sends costumed societies and burning torches through a pretty Wealden village high street."
Mayfield Bonfire
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Thirty specialist nurseries gather at Christopher Lloyd's legendary experimental garden for a weekend of rare plants, short plantsmanship talks at the stalls and famous cake."
Great Dixter Autumn Plant Fair
"This small Wealden village keeps the old Sussex tradition alive with a torchlit procession, costumed marchers and a village bonfire and fireworks."
Northiam Bonfire
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Six rival bonfire societies stage torch-lit processions, burning effigies, and fireworks through the streets of Lewes on the 5th in what is widely regarded as the UK's most spectacular and defiant Bonfire Night tradition."
Lewes Bonfire Celebrations
"Six rival bonfire societies fill the narrow streets with blazing torches, burning crosses and exploding effigies in the wildest Fifth of November spectacle in the world."
Lewes Bonfire Night Celebrations
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Burford's historic high street and medieval St John the Baptist Church host a combined Christmas market with over 20 craft stalls and a festive lights switch-on at The Tolsey, drawing the whole town together on the last Saturday of November."
Burford Christmas
"Costumed Dickens characters, carol singers and guaranteed snow flurries fill the old high street beneath the Norman castle and cathedral."
Rochester Dickensian Christmas
"A traditional free-entry fete on a Surrey village green, with a Fun Dog Show, plant stalls and local entertainment on one of the prettiest commons in the Surrey Hills."
Shamley Green Village Fete
"A long-running Surrey carnival on the A23 Recreation Ground, with a traditional parade, family entertainment and local community stalls drawing the whole town together on a June Saturday."
Horley Carnival
"The Surrey village built around the ornamental lake created for George III holds its annual summer fete each June, a classic English village event on the edge of the Royal landscape of Windsor Great Park where marquees go up on the village green and the smell of cut grass and coconut shy mingles with the lake beyond."
Virginia Water Village Fete
"40 floats parade through Farnham on a Stage and Screen theme, followed by a fayre in Gostrey Meadow from 2pm, organised by the Hedgehogs of Farnham since the 1900s."
Farnham Carnival