Petworth Festival
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.
A genuinely rewarding small town that punches far above its 3,000-person size with a National Trust showpiece, a Michelin-listed restaurant, an artisan bakery, over 30 antique dealers, a monthly farmers market, and a cultural festival calendar that would suit a city.
Cottages, B&Bs and hotels near Petworth, West Sussex.
Some stay links are affiliate links. More
Add the free Villagly badge to your own website. It shows visitors you are listed with us and links them straight back to this page.
Get the free badge →Event details come from organisers and can change. Please check with the organiser before you travel.
"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
"The Findon Village Gardens Association fills the hall with prize blooms, vegetables, baking and handicrafts in a friendly South Downs show that has been a fixture of village life for decades."
Findon Village Summer Flower Show
"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
"The Goodwood motor circuit returns to its 1948 specification each September for a three-day historic racing meeting where spectators and competitors alike wear period dress, the paddock smells of Castrol R, and ERA and pre-war Bentley machinery is raced in anger as though the last seventy years had not happened."
Goodwood Revival
"A South Downs village fair that has been trading sheep since the 12th century, still entirely about the sheep, still held on the village green, and still rather pleased with itself about both."
Findon Sheep Fair
"The narrow streets of this West Sussex market town host a makers Christmas market each late November in the shadow of Petworth House's vast estate wall, a properly artisan alternative to the big city versions with only locally produced gifts on offer."
Petworth Christmas Market
"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
"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."
Henley Literary 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
"Britain's oldest and largest open studios festival, Oxfordshire Artweeks unlocks over a thousand artists' homes, rural studios, Cotswold village halls, and historic gardens across the county for three free weeks each May."
Oxfordshire Artweeks
"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
"A purpose-built opera house in a Cotswolds village presents Wagner, Handel, Verdi and Humperdinck across a full summer season, one of the UK's most ambitious small opera festivals in a setting of extraordinary rural beauty."
Longborough Festival Opera