"Jedburgh's week-long civic festival centres on the Callant who leads the mounted cavalcade on the Redeswire Ride commemorating a historic border skirmish, culminating in Festival Day with the Jedburgh Border Games."

Jedburgh Callants Festival

"Duns Summer Festival brings the Berwickshire market town to life each July with a full week of civic events topped by the Saturday rideout and fancy dress procession through the town streets."

Duns Summer Festival

"A 36th-year coastal festival that crowns the weekend with an Aqua Ceilidh in the open-air pool and a World Paper'n'Comb Championship alongside top trad acts."

Stonehaven Folk Festival

"A true island adventure to the white sands of the Hebridean isle nicknamed the Hawaii of the North, where Celtic music meets surf, sunshine and a tiny community."

Tiree Music Festival

"Held at the riverside Bught Park, the Inverness Highland Games is one of the north's premier gatherings, attracting top heavy athletes and massed pipe bands to the Highland capital."

Inverness Highland Games

"Kelso's civic week is anchored by the Kelso Laddie leading a mounted cavalcade to Yetholm and back, reviving the ancient custom of riding the burgh marches in the heart of the Tweed valley."

Kelso Civic Week and Kelso Laddies

"HebCelt brings world-class Celtic music, Gaelic culture and a touch of circus to the Outer Hebrides, set against the castle grounds and shores of the Isle of Lewis."

Hebridean Celtic Festival

"Innerleithen's St Ronan's Games combine the ancient Cleikum ceremony on the Friday evening, in which evil is symbolically hooked out of the town, with a full Highland games programme on the Saturday."

St Ronan's Border Games, Innerleithen

"A long-standing one-day agricultural show in the Upper Clyde Valley market town of Biggar, celebrated for its inter-breed sheep championships and strong community turnout."

Biggar Show

"Mounted ride-outs led by the Kelso Laddie criss-cross the Borders countryside in a week of civic ceremony."

Kelso Civic Week

"Running for over 140 years in the Angus town that inspired J.M. Barrie, this one-day show features cattle, sheep, horses, vintage vehicles and a broad range of craft and agricultural stands."

Kirriemuir Agricultural Show

"Attadale Estate near Strathcarron hosts this Highland games where the water of the loch runs right alongside the field and the Applecross hills rise almost vertically on the far shore, making it one of the most dramatically sited games in Scotland and among the most peaceful."

Lochcarron Highland Games

"One of the highest village games in Scotland, with heavy events and dancing in the Cairngorms."

Tomintoul Highland Games

"Strongmen, dancers and massed pipe bands gather at the Mackie Academy fields in this characterful Aberdeenshire harbour town."

Stonehaven Highland Games

"Burntisland Links on the Fife coast has hosted Highland games for over 150 years, making this one of the longest-running games in Scotland, a festival of pipe bands and athletics where the Forth Estuary stretches out on one side and the Fife coal country rises behind."

Burntisland Highland Games

"A week of crab catching, catapult competitions, Highland Games at Ballone Castle, ceilidhs, sandcastle contests and storytelling in this small Easter Ross fishing village on the Dornoch Firth, ending with Gala Day and the crowning of the Gala Queen."

Portmahomack Gala

"Caber and hammer beside Loch Fyne in the grounds of Inveraray Castle, seat of the Duke of Argyll."

Inveraray Highland Games

"Heavies toss the caber and pipers play in Erray Park above Tobermory's painted harbour, after a pipe band march through the colourful island town."

Mull Highland Games

"Kelso Racecourse in late July, where the cattle are Scots and the sheep are Border and the judges have opinions, the great show of the eastern Border country, with the Tweed just over the fence."

Border Union Show

"Britain's most northwesterly Highland Games, held in the remote coastal village of Durness in Sutherland, combines traditional heavy events with a spectacular far-north setting."

Durness Highland Games

"This village on the edge of the Forth carse holds its games in the shadow of a ruined castle, an intimate gathering where the heavy athletes compete while the Ochil Hills and the Wallace Monument are both visible on the horizon and the Forth bends around the grounds."

Airth Highland Games

"A 200-year-old gathering of Clans MacLaren, MacGregor and Macnab that ends with the folk band Pure Malt playing in the beer tent."

Balquhidder, Lochearnhead and Strathyre Highland Games

"The self-proclaimed whisky capital of the world hosts its Highland games at Mortlach School grounds each July, where seven working distilleries are within walking distance and the smell of peat smoke is as much a part of the games as any caber."

Dufftown Highland Games

"Eyemouth's fishing-community festival crowns the Herring Queen each summer in a tradition rooted in a post-WWI Fisherman's Peace Picnic, celebrating the town's close ties to the sea."

Eyemouth Herring Queen Festival

"This tiny Caithness village hosts a mini-Olympics with over 100 events and some of the richest prize money in Scotland, opened by the Viscount Thurso."

Halkirk Highland Games

"Dunoon's inaugural food festival in Castle Gardens celebrates Argyll produce with Scotland's National Chef Gary Maclean headlining, artisan cheeses, fresh seafood, rhubarb soft drinks and frozen margaritas from producers across the Firth of Clyde."

Taste Dunoon Food and Drink Festival

"Station Park in the home of golf hosts Highland games the day after the traditional July weekend, a gathering of pipe bands and athletes in a small city that trades more in history and ceremony than almost anywhere else in Scotland."

St Andrews Highland Games

"Traigh Farm near Arisaig holds its games with the Small Isles of Eigg, Rum and Muck shining on the horizon across the blue Sound of Arisaig, a location so extravagantly beautiful that the athletic results become almost secondary to the experience of simply being there."

Arisaig Highland Games

"A day of riding the marches, fair-crying and emblems of thistle and heather in this Dumfriesshire town."

Langholm Common Riding

"Caber-tossing and Highland dancing come to the Alice Littler Memorial Park in the heart of Speyside whisky country."

Aberlour Strathspey Highland Games

"Heavy events, highland dancing and pipe bands on Aboyne Green in a long-running Deeside gathering."

Aboyne Highland Games

"The elegant planned town of Grantown-on-Spey in the upper Spey valley holds its annual agricultural show in August when the moors above are a week from flowering, a show that gathers the farms of Strathspey and Badenoch together for a day of livestock judging and country sports in the heart of the Cairngorms."

Grantown Show

"Lauder's Common Riding is one of the most intimate of the Borders festivals, with a mounted Cornet leading riders along the ancient marches of this small market town on the edge of the Lammermuir Hills."

Lauder Common Riding

"The northernmost Highland games in Scotland, held near John o' Groats in the lee of the Castle of Mey that the Queen Mother loved, where the Orkney Islands are visible across the Pentland Firth and the wind rarely stops long enough for the caber to fall straight."

Mey Highland Games

"The Eilan at Newtonmore in the Spey Valley hosts this village games where Badenoch and Strathspey meet, the shinty-playing heartland of the Highlands where the heavy events are contested with a seriousness and local knowledge that puts the big tourist-facing games firmly in perspective."

Newtonmore Highland Games

"Over 180 artists open front rooms, garages, sheds and gardens in this East Neuk fishing village for eight August days, turning Pittenweem's harbourside streets into the most personal and intimate art festival in Scotland."

Pittenweem Arts Festival

"Games Park in this Victorian spa village on the foot of the Ochil Hills has hosted Highland games since 1861, one of the oldest continuously running games in the world, held in a village that Victorian visitors came to for its mineral springs and where the air still seems clearer than the surrounding Forth valley."

Bridge of Allan Highland Games

"Coldstream's civic week climaxes with the Coldstreamer leading a mounted rideout to Flodden Field, honouring the Borderers who fell in the 1513 battle in one of the most moving riding ceremonies in Scotland."

Coldstream Civic Week

"Scotland's largest two-day agricultural show, established in 1864, draws around 24,000 visitors to The Haughs in Turriff for over 1,554 competition classes spanning livestock, working dogs and vintage vehicles."

Turriff Show

"The largest agricultural show in the Scottish Highlands, held at Muir of Ord since 1836, draws farmers from across the region for livestock judging, show jumping and stunt displays."

Black Isle Show

"Held in the colourful harbour town of Portree with the Cuillins rising behind, the Skye games bring together islanders and visitors for a day of heavy athletics and pipe bands in the most spectacular island setting of any Highland games in Scotland."

Isle of Skye Highland Games

"Athletes race up Sron a'Chlachain in a punishing hill race while pipers march over the Falls of Dochart bridge at the western end of Loch Tay."

Killin Highland Games

"Wades Park at Aberfeldy hosts its games beside the same River Tay that Robert Burns immortalised in verse, where the Birks of Aberfeldy rise behind the field and the games serve as the climax of the town's summer show weekend in the heart of highland Perthshire."

Aberfeldy Highland Games

"Culag Park at Lochinver holds the most remote Highland games on the Scottish mainland, where the extraordinary quartzite mountains of Assynt rise in every direction and the audience is a mixture of local crofting families and visitors who have driven an hour from the nearest town to get there."

Assynt Highland Games

"A man encased head to toe in sticky burrs walks the town for nine hours, a fertility custom of unknown but ancient origin."

Burryman's Parade

"Meadows Park in the ancient cathedral town of Dornoch hosts its games on a summer Friday, where the medieval cathedral oversees the pipe bands and the links that rank among the finest golf courses in the world lie just beyond the dunes at the edge of the Dornoch Firth."

Dornoch Highland Games

"Castle Leod, seat of the Earl of Cromartie, hosts the gathering in this beautifully preserved Victorian spa village in the Black Isle hinterland, where the original pump rooms and pavilion pavilion still stand and the games have been a fixture since the Victorian health tourists first came to take the waters."

Strathpeffer Highland Gathering

"Glenmorangie Ground in Scotland's oldest royal burgh hosts its Highland gathering each August, the town's patron saint Duthac watching over proceedings from his shrine in the medieval church that pilgrims including James IV once visited on foot from Edinburgh."

Tain Highland Gathering

"Classic Deeside games of caber, hammer and dancing in a village beside Balmoral."

Ballater Highland Games

"The Royal Deeside market town of Banchory hosts its agricultural show each August at the gateway to the Cairngorms, where Aberdeenshire beef and Highland cattle are judged against a backdrop of the Forest of Birse and the River Dee shining in the valley below."

Banchory Show

"Massed pipe bands lead the chieftain's parade from the Bridge Hotel to Couper Park in this small fishing village on the far northeast coast."

Helmsdale and District Highland Games

"The last free games in the Highlands, where Games Day on the seaside Links feels like New Year, opened by Lord Cawdor himself."

Nairn Highland Games

"Children in elaborate horse costumes parade, then boys plough miniature furrows in the sand at the Hope."

Boys' Ploughing Match and Festival of the Horse

"Market Park in the town that was once the largest cattle market in Scotland and the southern end of the drove roads from the Highlands hosts its gathering each August, where the Knock hill rises above the ground and the games feel rooted in a landscape that shaped the character of the entire Highland cattle trade."

Crieff Highland Gathering

"One of Scotland's oldest music festivals brings Gaelic nights, ceilidhs, pipe bands and distillery tours to a remote Kintyre town at the road's very end."

Mull of Kintyre Music Festival

"Scotland's premier sheepdog competition over four days at Letham Farm in the Ochil Hills, where the nation's finest handlers qualify for the International and the once-every-three-years World Trial."

Scottish National Sheepdog Trials

"The Haugh at Forter in remote Glenisla holds its games in a glen where the only road is single track, the mobile phone signal is unreliable and the audience has come from the farms and shooting estates of Angus rather than from any tourist trail, making it one of the most authentic Highland gatherings anywhere."

Glenisla Highland Games

"Heavy events, wrestling and a 10K road race come to The Stadium in the genteel Victorian island resort of Rothesay."

Bute Highland Games

"Blairbeg Park in Drumnadrochit holds its games with Loch Ness stretching south toward the Great Glen and Urquhart Castle ruins visible from the throwing circle, a combination of Highland athletics and legendary scenery that no other games ground in Scotland can match."

Glenurquhart Highland Games

"Set at Inverlochy Castle Farm in the shadow of Ben Nevis, this West Highland agricultural show and family fun day celebrates the farming traditions of Lochaber with livestock and countryside displays."

Lochaber Agricultural Show

"The March of the Lonach Highlanders, kilted men with pikes walking the glen, precedes a day of games at Strathdon."

Lonach Highland Gathering

"One of Scotland's most distinctive gatherings, the Lonach sees kilted clansmen march twelve miles carrying pikes before the Highland Games begin at Bellabeg in the upper Don valley."

Lonach Highland and Friendly Society Gathering

"A secluded Perthshire glen games in the hills above Blairgowrie, where the heavy events take place on a field ringed by heather moorland and the highland dancing stage backs onto birch woodland."

Strathardle Highland Games

"The Argyllshire Gathering at Mossfield Stadium in Oban is the premier Games event of the west coast, featuring a ceremonial parade from Station Square and first-class piping and heavy athletics."

Argyllshire Gathering (Oban Highland Games)

"The largest Highland games in the world, closing with a torchlit march of massed pipe bands through Dunoon."

Cowal Highland Gathering

"Amid Shakespeare's Birnam Wood you can watch the gloriously daft World Haggis Eating Competition alongside the caber and the Mad Kiltie Dash."

Birnam Highland Games

"Held alongside the Cowal Highland Gathering, the Cowal Fringe fills Dunoon's streets and gardens with additional performances, street arts and local entertainment celebrating the broader artistic life of this Firth of Clyde town."

Cowal Fringe Festival

"A cherished one-day agricultural show in the spa town of Moffat in the Southern Uplands, celebrating hill farming traditions and Dumfries and Galloway livestock with a strong local community spirit."

Moffat Show

"The most famous of the Highland games, with tossing the caber, hill races and massed pipe bands, often attended by royalty."

Braemar Gathering

"On Easdale Island, accessible only by foot ferry, competitors skim slates across a flooded quarry pool on the last Saturday of summer, in the world's only skimming championship held on a Scottish island with no cars and a population of around 60."

World Stone Skimming Championships

"Games in the heart of Perthshire soft fruit country the weekend after Braemar, when the season's competitors make one of their final gatherings of the year on Bogles Field."

Blairgowrie Highland Games

"A celebration of Scotland's last remaining wild and native oyster bed in Loch Ryan, with celebrity chef demos, the Scottish Oyster Shucking Championships, live music and a vast oyster bar on Stranraer Harbour."

Stranraer Oyster Festival

"The Scottish Vintage Tractor and Engine Club brings a September rally to the Scone Palace parklands in Perthshire, where vintage steam, working horses and old farming machinery are demonstrated against the backdrop of the coronation place of Scottish kings and the finest parkland setting of any British vintage rally."

Farming Yesteryear and Vintage Rally

"Heavy events, dancing and a hill race above the town, closing with massed pipe bands in Highland Perthshire."

Pitlochry Highland Games

"The sport's ultimate contest held only every three years in the region widely considered the birthplace of the Border Collie, where handlers from across the world gather at Huntington Farm for five extraordinary days."

World Sheepdog Trials

"Four days of traditional music on an Hebridean island reachable only by ferry, workshops, open sessions, ceilidhs in the island hall, and the Atlantic on all four sides."

Ceol Cholasa: Colonsay Folk Festival

"Four days of Aberdeenshire artisan food producers, local folk musicians and community spirit in a Royal Deeside village, where the September apple harvest season and the warmth of a rural Scottish gathering make for an unusually nourishing weekend."

Tarland Food and Music Festival

"Three days in a Black Isle village near Inverness where the sessions run late and the Moray Firth catches the September light outside, a small Highland folk festival doing exactly what it promised."

Ardersier Folk Festival

"On a remote Hebridean island of more deer than people, a village hall and marquee fill with trad sessions, ceilidhs, step dancing and a samba procession."

Jura Music Festival

"Scotland's National Book Town hosts its 25th festival across ten days and 200 events in this Galloway village of fifteen bookshops, where authors, musicians and artists fill the town hall, bookshops and gardens with literature, music and theatre."

Wigtown Book Festival

"A world-renowned week celebrating Britain's most northerly native sheep and the Shetland textile tradition, with knitting demonstrations, croft visits, a new hat pattern each year and events spread across the islands for 2026's Together Through Makkin theme."

Shetland Wool Week

"The Dumfriesshire ploughing match rotates between farms in the Nith valley and the surrounding upland country each autumn, where the deep red sandstone soils and the wide skies of southwest Scotland give the competition its own distinct and unhurried character."

Dumfriesshire Ploughing Match

"Competitors from across the world converge on the Cairngorm village of Carrbridge to contest the Golden Spurtle trophy each October, cooking traditional porridge and open specialty oat dishes to a panel of judges in the village hall while the birch woods outside are turning the first rust of autumn."

World Porridge Making Championship

"Said to be the most prestigious traditional accordion and fiddle event in Scotland, it builds to a world famous Grand Dance with six hours of live music from eleven dance bands."

Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Festival

"A not for profit autumn gathering in a Galloway market town that champions young traditional musicians with concerts, sessions and dancing at a converted bank turned arts centre."

Autumn Trad Festival

"The brainchild of Blazin Fiddles immerses a Highland village in fiddle music for a week of classes, talks, sessions and ceilidhs marking its 25th birthday."

Blazin in Beauly

"The 62nd Scottish Ploughing Championships at Whitburgh Farms, where horse and tractor classes compete across two autumn days in the kind of focused rural spectacle that has shaped Scottish farming culture for over 60 years."

Scottish Ploughing Championships

"A two-day arts, crafts and local produce fayre in the historic East Neuk fishing village of Crail, drawing makers and community together in the Community Hall each late November with free entry and a choir performance."

Crail Christmas Fayre

"The multicoloured painted houses of Tobermory harbour are strung with lights as local producers set up their Christmas market by the pontoons, coinciding with the lights switch-on that turns this Isle of Mull town into a winter scene that passengers on the Oban ferry can see from the water."

Tobermory Christmas Market

"The Royal Deeside village that sits at the foot of the hills above Balmoral holds its Christmas market each December in a setting in the Cairngorms National Park that very few other Christmas markets anywhere in Britain can match for sheer backdrop."

Ballater Christmas Market

"This small South Lanarkshire market town, known for its remarkable puppet theatre and its unusually well-preserved High Street, lights up for a December winterfest that draws visitors from across the Clyde Valley for community entertainment and a properly Scottish Christmas welcome."

Biggar Winterfest

"Hundreds of Uppies and Doonies wrestle a leather ball through the streets of Kirkwall on Christmas Day and New Year's Day."

Kirkwall Ba' Game

"One of the largest Hogmanay bonfires in Scotland, lit in the heart of this Borders town every New Year's Eve."

Biggar Bonfire

"At the stroke of midnight villagers light ten-foot tarred birch torches and parade them behind a pipe band before hurling the flames into the River Earn."

Comrie Flambeaux

"At the stroke of midnight on Hogmanay, selected villagers carry ten-foot birch poles topped with burning tarred rags through the streets of Comrie, led by the pipe band, before hurling the spent flambeaux into the River Earn in a custom believed to date to pagan or Pictish times."

Comrie Flambeaux Procession

"At Hogmanay locals swing flaming wire cages of fire over their heads down the High Street to burn away the old year."

Stonehaven Fireball Ceremony

"Shetland's oldest fire festival opens the islands' Viking season each January with 200 to 300 torch-bearing guizers escorting a burning longship galley through the streets of Shetland's former capital to the harbour at Port Arthur."

Scalloway Fire Festival

"A burning barrel of tar is carried around this Moray fishing village to mark the old new year, a Pictish-era survival."

Burning of the Clavie

"Birthplace of the Scottish Snowdrop Festival, Cambo Estate holds the Plant Heritage national collection of over 200 specialist snowdrop varieties carpeting 70 acres of woodland walks down to the Fife coast."

Cambo Estate Snowdrop Festival

"Up to a thousand torch-bearing guizers in Viking dress march through the dark and set a full-size longship galley ablaze."

Up Helly Aa

"Twice a year the entire town of Jedburgh divides into Uppies and Doonies to contest a football match with no fixed rules, no referee and no pitch boundaries through the streets and closes of the town, a tradition said to derive from the use of an English soldier's head after a medieval border battle."

Jedburgh Ba' Game

"Founded in 1961 by a group of friends reluctant to end their New Year celebrations, this community fire festival lights up Shetland's east Mainland each February with a torchlit galley procession and squads of guizers in hand-crafted Viking costumes."

Nesting and Girlsta Up Helly Aa

"Shetland's second-oldest fire festival, held since 1911 on Britain's most northerly island, draws over 200 guizers through the dark February night before a Viking galley is set ablaze on the shore at Uyeasound."

Uyeasound Up Helly Aa

"Local children race round the parish church swinging paper balls on string to chase away winter."

Whuppity Scoorie

"Three nights of pub sessions, waulking-song workshops and village-hall concerts mark the 30th year of folk on this island off the Ayrshire coast."

Arran Folk Festival

"Singarounds, seaside shanties and storytelling fill this fishing village's Salmon Bothy for the 16th gathering of song, tune and tradition."

HAAL Festival

"Cornet and mounted supporters ride the marches to drum and fife, commemorating a 1514 skirmish."

Hawick Common Riding

"Scotland's multi-award winning children's festival in the castle grounds of Tullibole Castle: 90 all-inclusive activities from circus to nature play, music, storytelling and a peacock-dotted campsite described as the happiest place in Scotland."

Wildhood Festival

"One of Scotland's oldest village festivals, dating to 1704, Lilias Day fills Kilbarchan's streets with a costumed historic parade of over 300 years of local characters, pipe bands, and floral arches before spilling into the public park for a ceilidh tent, medieval village, and tug of war."

Kilbarchan Lilias Day

"This quiet Aberdeenshire village holds its own Highland games on the first Saturday of June, a deeply local event where the spectators know the athletes and the afternoon ends with community socialising that no travel guide has yet fully described."

Cornhill Highland Games

"Rugby Park at Helensburgh holds its Highland games with Loch Lomond shining in the distance, a gathering that combines the ancient competitions of caber and hammer with pipe bands and Highland dancing against one of the finest freshwater views in Scotland."

Helensburgh and Loch Lomond Highland Games

"One of Scotland's oldest surviving civic traditions, Lanark Lanimers commemorates the riding of the town's marches each June, with a week of events building to Lanimer Day when the decorated horse parade and crowning of the Lanimer Queen fills the Royal Burgh with colour."

Lanark Lanimers

"John Dixon Park in this Fife village hosts its Highland games on the Sunday after Scotland's schools break for summer, a community gathering of pipe bands, athletic competition and Highland dancing that has been running here for generations."

Markinch Highland Games

"Three days of Scottish traditional music, song, dance and verse with bothy ballads, ceilidhs and competitions fill this north-east town for its 51st year."

Keith TMSA Festival

"A small Highland village fills with musicians every June. The mountains are the backdrop and the sessions go late."

Killin Music Fest

"A flotilla of heritage boats drops anchor in the seventeenth-century harbour for a weekend of music, dance, Scottish food and age-old craft demonstrations."

Scottish Traditional Boat Festival

"Hundreds of riders follow the standard bearer round the burgh boundaries in the oldest of the Borders common ridings."

Selkirk Common Riding

"A long-running Renfrewshire village gala in which a themed parade marches from the Auld Simon pub to the public park for the crowning of a Gala King and Queen, live bands, a dog show, and a silent disco."

Lochwinnoch Gala Day

"The South Lanarkshire fruit-growing town of Carluke marks its annual summer gala with a procession, the crowning of the Queen and a community street party that has gathered the whole town together on the second Saturday of June for generations in one of Scotland's most cheerfully persistent summer traditions."

Carluke Gala Day

"The East Lothian town famous for the 1745 Jacobite victory and its extraordinary tapestry recording the battle holds its annual gala each June, a community day of crowning, games and procession in a town that has turned its industrial and military history into a source of considerable civic pride."

Prestonpans Gala Day

"Caber-tossers, dancers and pipers fill the grand lawns of Glamis Castle, the childhood home of the late Queen Mother."

Strathmore Highland Games

"One of the Scottish Borders' best-loved civic weeks, the Melrose Festival culminates in a horseback rideout through the shadow of the Eildon Hills and the crowning and installation of the Festival Queen on the Thursday."

Melrose Festival

"Scotland's greatest show. Livestock, land machinery, Highland dancing, and malt whisky in the sun, if you happen to be lucky."

Royal Highland Show

"Dumfries's ancient riding of the marches custom sees hundreds of horses gather at dawn to ride the burgh boundaries before the crowning of the Queen of the South and an afternoon parade of floats through the town."

Dumfries Guid Nychburris Day

"Craighead Park in this South Lanarkshire village hosts Highland games that have run without interruption for well over a century, a local event that stands apart from the tourist circuit and is attended almost entirely by people who drove twenty minutes from home."

Lesmahagow Highland Games

"The Aberdeenshire market town of Oldmeldrum hosts its Highland games on the longest days of the year, when the evening light in the northeast lasts until midnight and the caber tosses and pipe bands feel like they belong to the oldest possible version of a Scottish summer."

Oldmeldrum Highland Games

"Known locally as the Sunshine Sports, this Aberdeenshire gathering first held in 1930 combines traditional heavy events with athletic competitions in the heart of a rural market town."

Oldmeldrum Sports and Highland Games

"A week of riding the marches, crowning of the Beltane Queen and pageantry in this Tweed valley town."

Peebles Beltane Festival

"The Grampian Transport Museum at Alford hosts this outdoor celebration of north-east Scotland's food and drink producers each June, a showcase of Aberdeenshire's extraordinary larder of beef, fish, game and artisan produce set in the Howe of Alford with the Grampian hills rising on every side."

Best of Grampian

"Scottish fiddle supergroup Blazin' Fiddles welcomes fiddlers, guitarists and pianists to venues across this Lanarkshire town for a weekend of classes, sessions and craic."

Blazin in Biggar

"The oldest free Highland games in Scotland, held by royal charter every year since 1314 in honour of the Ceres men who marched home from Bannockburn."

Ceres Highland Games

"Known as the friendliest games in the area, set among the trees in the glorious grounds of Drumtochty Castle just outside Auchenblae."

Drumtochty Highland Games

"A dawn cavalcade to the Raid Stone commemorates a 1337 victory over English raiders, with Soor Plums handed between sweethearts and a Mixing of the Roses ceremony recalling the marriage of Margaret Tudor to James IV."

Galashiels Braw Lads Gathering

"Three private gardens open in a Stirlingshire village at the foot of the Campsie Fells, from a tiny walled garden with a topiary rabbit to a Victorian arbour with views of the hills."

Gardens of Milton of Campsie

"The fishing villages of the East Neuk of Fife host one of Scotland's finest chamber music festivals each July, with world-class ensembles playing in village halls, old granaries and stone-vaulted churches a few yards from the North Sea, where lobster creels are stacked outside and the smell of the harbour drifts through the open doors."

East Neuk Festival

"The tiny village at the eastern end of Loch Tay holds its Highland games on a midweek summer day when the loch is perfectly still and the Breadalbane hills frame the caber and hammer competitions in a setting that artists and writers have been trying to capture since the eighteenth century."

Kenmore Highland Games

"Keir Mains near Dunblane hosts this one-day agricultural show at the heart of Central Scotland, where Highland and Lowland farming traditions meet in the shadow of the Ochil Hills and livestock from the Forth valley and the Trossachs compete for cups that have been given out here for over a century."

Doune and Dunblane Show

"Scotland's biggest country sports event across the parkland of Scone Palace, with four nations gundog competitions, terrier racing, working hill ponies, falconry and a Saturday night ceilidh under canvas."

GWCT Scottish Game Fair

"Annan's traditional boundary-riding custom sees a mounted procession ride the ancient marches of this Solway coast burgh, upholding one of Dumfriesshire's oldest civic ceremonies."

Annan Riding of the Marches

"Grant Park in the ancient market town of Forres hosts its Highland games at the height of summer, a traditional gathering in a town that predates the Viking invasions and where the games feel genuinely embedded in the fabric of the place rather than mounted for visitors."

Forres Highland Games

"Deep in the Great Glen, this small community gathering at Invergarry draws athletes and pipe bands from across the West Highlands for a traditional day of heavy events and dancing."

Glengarry Highland Gathering

"Pipe bands and the caber toss on the banks of Loch Lomond in one of Scotland's most photographed villages, with Ben Lomond rising directly across the water."

Luss Highland Games

"Three remote island gardens open on Rousay for one July day, including a community school garden planted over 20 years by students, set in Orkney's extraordinary prehistoric landscape."

Rousay Summer Garden Day