Henley Literary 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.
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"Held on Blur bassist Alex James's Cotswolds farm over August Bank Holiday, this festival blends headline music acts with Michelin-starred chefs, street food producers and family activities in an idyllic rural setting."
The Big Feastival
"Specialist nurseries gather in the historic gardens of Adwell House beneath the Chiltern Hills for an autumn Rare Plant Fair, offering unusual and hard-to-find plants in an intimate estate setting."
Rare Plant Fair at Adwell House
"The handsome Oxfordshire market town of Thame fills its wide high street with artisan food and drink producers on the last weekend of September, a free festival that draws chefs for demonstrations and locals for the kind of independent food stalls that national food courts have been failing to replicate for thirty years."
Thame Food Festival
"An autumn celebration of heritage and unusual apple varieties held in the beautiful walled gardens at Waterperry, featuring specialist nurseries, tastings and seasonal planting advice."
Apple Weekend at Waterperry Gardens
"The FFF&B Ploughing Society rotates its autumn competition between farms in the Cotswold Water Park country south of Burford, where the flat river gravel fields and the stone walls of the Windrush villages provide a classic setting for working horses and steel ploughs to contest the straightest furrow."
Fairford Faringdon Filkins and Burford Ploughing Match
"Sixty handpicked chalets fill the Great Court of Blenheim Palace for five weeks, with artisan gifts, seasonal food and drink and a Cinderella-themed illuminated light trail winding through the palace grounds after dark."
Blenheim Palace Christmas Market
"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 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
"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
"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
"The medieval market town of Petworth, where Turner painted and Constable walked in the grounds of Petworth House, hosts its summer festival of classical music, literature and the arts across July and August, using the town's churches, the Leconfield Hall and the great house itself as venues in one of England's most quietly distinguished small festivals."
Petworth Festival
"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