Rufford Old Hall Scarecrow Festival
Through October and into November, the medieval Rufford Old Hall fills its grounds with scarecrows on a pop stars and music legends theme, making it one of the grandest and longest-running Halloween-season scarecrow trails in England.
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"More than 70 scarecrows on a single themed trail wind through a Pendle Hill village each August Bank Holiday, with hot food, children's quizzes and a raffle raising funds for the local hall and church."
Higham Scarecrow Festival
"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"A traditional agricultural show hosted in turn by the farming families of Dunsop Bridge, Newton-in-Bowland and Slaidburn so no two years are the same, set deep in the Forest of Bowland AONB."
Hodder Valley Show
"Two days of countryside life at a Ribble Valley village showground, with Vale of Lune Harriers in the main ring, gundog scurries, birds of prey, horse classes and live music drawing families from across the North West."
Lancashire Game and Country Festival
"A relaxed charity festival run for a historic village institute near Bolton where every artist gives their time free so all the proceeds support the Barlow."
Edgworth Folk Festival
"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
"Every first September weekend, the hilltop village of Norland transforms via a self-guided trail through narrow lanes and gardens, with villagers creating hundreds of characters on this year's Sports, Leisure and Games theme, all raising money for local causes."
Norland Scarecrow Festival
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Competitors lob black puddings underarm at a stack of Yorkshire puddings on a plinth, settling an old rivalry."
World Black Pudding Throwing Championships
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Competitors race uphill carrying a hundredweight sack of coal to the village maypole every Easter Monday."
World Coal Carrying Championships
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Decorated beds on wheels race through the North Yorkshire market town on the second Saturday in June, crossing the River Nidd in 2026's Swinging Sixties edition, in one of England's most eccentric and joyful annual spectacles."
Great Knaresborough Bed Race
✦ Weird and Wonderful"On the last Sunday of June, the Yorkshire Dales village of Upperthong crowns a world champion welly boot thrower: the only official championship for this deeply Yorkshire sport, invented here with a maximum run-up of exactly 42 paces as specified by Douglas Adams."
World Welly Wanging Championship
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Named for the spectral black dog that terrorised St Mary's Church in 1577, this brilliant folklore festival fills the town with art, parade, storytelling and a ritual burning of demons."
Black Shuck Festival
✦ Weird and Wonderful