Bromyard Scarecrow Festival
On a June weekend, Bromyard's market town fills with scarecrows on a Heroes or Villains theme, culminating in a Friday evening grand parade where schools, scouts and families wheel their creations through the streets to the town green for judging.
A compact, genuinely historic Herefordshire market town whose timber-framed streetscape, Norman church, clutch of independent cafes and bakeries, and long-running folk festival give it enough substance to reward a few hours without quite demanding a full day.
Cottages, B&Bs and hotels near Bromyard, Herefordshire.
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"Three days of morris sides, ceilidh and song in a Herefordshire market town surrounded by hop yards and cider orchards."
Bromyard Folk Festival
"This market-town celebration brings apple pressing, cider tastings and orchard stalls to the streets above the River Wye as part of Herefordshire's apple fortnight."
Ross-on-Wye AppleFest
"Across hidden farms, cider barns and manor gardens around the Marcle Ridge you can watch perry pears being pressed and taste makers' wares straight from the cask."
Big Apple Harvestime
"The UK's biggest poetry festival fills a black-and-white timbered Herefordshire town with ten days of readings, workshops and spoken word."
Ledbury Poetry Festival
"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
"The 40th year of this Herefordshire countryside rally, where steam ploughing and threshing demonstrations, fairground organs and a Saturday auction bring thousands to a cider orchard village between the Malverns and the Wye."
Much Marcle Steam Rally
"At the Barley Mow pub in Bonsall village, hens race over a thirty-foot course in heats building to a grand final, watched by enthusiastic crowds who take this Derbyshire Peak District tradition with exactly the gravity it deserves."
Bonsall World Championship Hen Racing
✦ Weird and Wonderful"The village of Heather, Kings Award winner, goes cheerfully insane each August as gardens fill with hundreds of scarecrows depicting celebrities and topical characters, all competing for votes from the crowds who walk the trail with a guide booklet."
Heather Scarecrow Festival
✦ Weird and Wonderful"At midnight on Boxing Day, a mob of villagers paraders through Broughton in Northamptonshire banging tin cans, dustbin lids and any other available metal objects to drive away a witch who is said to have terrorised the village centuries ago, a custom so relentlessly noisy and purposeful that nothing else quite like it survives in England."
Broughton Tin Can Band
✦ Weird and Wonderful"A 700-year-old Lincolnshire custom where a leather tube is wrestled by hundreds of villagers toward one of four pubs, preceded by a Fool being smoked over a fire and the Lord of the Hood making proclamations in the church."
Haxey Hood Game
✦ Weird and Wonderful"A Lincolnshire village vintage show with over 250 classic vehicles, a Lancaster Bomber flypast and the 19th World Egg Throwing Championships, where international teams hurl eggs for distance, accuracy and sheer spectacular mess."
Swaton Vintage Day and World Egg Throwing Championships
✦ Weird and Wonderful"In its 52nd year, the world's only toe wrestling championship returns to Ashbourne Market Place where barefoot competitors lock toes and try to pin each other's foot to the ground in a sport invented in 1974 and officially rejected by the International Olympic Committee."
World Toe Wrestling Championship
✦ Weird and Wonderful