World Welly Wanging Championship
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.
A compact Pennine hillside village with a handsome Victorian church, one proper pub, and enough moorland air and Last of the Summer Wine associations to reward a short detour from nearby Holmfirth.
Cottages, B&Bs and hotels near Upperthong, West Yorkshire.
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.
"A classic moorland village show under the famous Emley Moor mast, packed with prize sheep, vintage machinery and the local brass band."
Emley Show
"A neighbourhood that takes its food seriously, doing what neighbourhoods should do on the first Sunday morning of every month."
Chapel Allerton Farmers Market
"A full Wharfedale country show with livestock, horticultural classes, showjumping and local food, run by the Arthington, Bramhope, Pool and District Society since 1906 at the gateway to the Dales."
Arthington Show
"The Calder Valley town of Mirfield holds its annual show at the Huddersfield Road showground each late August, a West Yorkshire agricultural and horticultural show that has been running continuously for well over a century in a part of the county where the textile mill towns and the farming country meet."
Mirfield Show
"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"A sixteen foot thatched rush cart pulled by sixty men in whites and clogs winds between the pubs of the Calder Valley, morris sides dancing it from inn to inn over a September weekend."
Sowerby Bridge Rushbearing
✦ 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"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."
Rufford Old Hall Scarecrow Festival
✦ 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"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"At the Barley Mow pub in Bonsall village, hens race over a thirty-foot course in heats building to a grand final, watched by enthusiastic crowds who take this Derbyshire Peak District tradition with exactly the gravity it deserves."
Bonsall World Championship Hen Racing
✦ Weird and Wonderful"The village of Heather, Kings Award winner, goes cheerfully insane each August as gardens fill with hundreds of scarecrows depicting celebrities and topical characters, all competing for votes from the crowds who walk the trail with a guide booklet."
Heather Scarecrow Festival
✦ Weird and Wonderful