Knutsford Royal May Day
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.
A well-heeled Cheshire market town with genuine architectural oddity - Georgian streets, a Grade I chapel, and Richard Harding Watt's eccentric Italianate towers make for a streetscape unlike any other in the north-west, backed by a serious independent food and drink scene and Tatton Park on the doorstep.
Cottages, B&Bs and hotels near Knutsford, 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
"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"Two days on the Cheshire Plain where the county's farming tradition meets its food obsession: supreme cattle champions, extraordinary local cheesemakers, and a show that has been held at Tabley since 1949."
Royal Cheshire County Show
"One of England's most singular calendar customs, this centuries-old West Witton rite sees a chanting crowd carry a glowing-eyed effigy of 'Bartle' through the village at nightfall before stabbing and burning him on the hillside above Wensleydale."
Burning Bartle
"An effigy is carried through the Wensleydale village to a rhyme before being burned, origins long lost."
Burning of Old Bartle
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Over a hundred concerts plus rapper, clog and Morris teams spill through a clifftop fishing town for a full week of song, dance, shanties and storytelling."
Whitby Folk Week
"A historic East Yorkshire village spreads concerts across its Civic Hall, parish church and local pubs over the Bank Holiday weekend."
Cottingham Folk Festival
"England's only festival of medieval music fills fourteenth century Bolton Castle and its church with lute, oud and bagpipe as performers explore the forgotten margins of the medieval world."
Medieval Music in the Dales
"A 35 year old festival that scatters concerts and slow sessions for beginners between a parish church, the common and snug pub back rooms in a Wharfedale market town."
Otley Folk Festival