English National Sheepdog Trials
The pinnacle of English sheepdog competition, run across four days on a Cheshire hillside where the country's finest handlers and their Border Collies compete for a place at the International.
Cottages, B&Bs and hotels near Sutton, Cheshire.
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"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 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
"Seventy stalls of crafts and local produce take over the scenic centre of this canal-and-cross Cheshire village beside Lymm Cross."
Lymm Makers Market
"Black-and-white timbered Tudor streets light up as a festive market lines Churchyardside in this characterful Cheshire market town."
Nantwich Christmas Lights and Festive Market
"One of England's oldest surviving May Day pageants, dating from 1864, where the streets of Knutsford are decorated with coloured sand mottoes before a costumed procession crowns the May Queen on the Heath."
Knutsford Royal May Day
"On a Willaston school field every June, charmers coax worms to the surface with garden forks and music inside a marked plot, eighteen solemn rules and a world record over five hundred worms in half an hour."
World Worm Charming Championships
Villagly Award · Strangest Talent in the UK ✦ Weird and Wonderful"The 120th year of this tiny, utterly traditional Lakeland show at the foot of Helvellyn, with open sheepdog trials, foxhound and terrier judging and a fell race while the ancient sound of Cumbrian dialect fills the valley."
Patterdale Dog Day
"Since 1852 the Showfield at Grasmere has hosted Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling, fell guides racing, hound trailing and tug-of-war on the August Bank Holiday Sunday, and in 2026 entry is completely free."
Grasmere Sports
"Grown adults in fancy dress grapple for two minutes in a pool of cold Lancashire gravy on August bank holiday, scored as much on showmanship as on pins, all for the local hospice."
World Gravy Wrestling Championships
Villagly Award · Messiest in the UK ✦ Weird and Wonderful"Held on the green beside the River Wharfe since the sixteenth century, with the brutal 1.5 mile dash up Burnsall Fell as its breathless centrepiece."
Burnsall Feast Sports and Classic Fell Race
"Crabs (crab apples, thrown from a cart) in the morning, greasy pole and hound trailing through the day, and in the evening competitors push their faces through a horse collar to achieve the most grotesque expression possible, since 1267."
Egremont Crab Fair and World Gurning Championships
Villagly Award · Best Gurn in the UK ✦ Weird and Wonderful"The Lancashire ploughing society's annual match brings competitors to the Ribble Valley farmland each October where the Bowland fells rise to the north and the fields are some of the oldest continuously ploughed in Lancashire."
Lancashire Ploughing Society Match