"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
"Around two hundred garden snails race outward from a central circle on a damp Norfolk cloth, bred in a county that suits them, to the starter's cry of ready, steady, slow."
World Snail Racing Championships
Villagly Award · Slowest Race in the UK ✦ Weird & Wonderful"Strongmen, dancers and massed pipe bands gather at the Mackie Academy fields in this characterful Aberdeenshire harbour town."
Stonehaven 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
"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
"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
"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
"Caber-tossing and Highland dancing come to the Alice Littler Memorial Park in the heart of Speyside whisky country."
Aberlour Strathspey Highland Games
"One of Ireland's oldest rural sports comes to the country roads of County Armagh, where competitors hurl a heavy iron bowl along miles of tarmac in the fewest throws, drawing huge roadside crowds in a tradition stretching back centuries."
Irish Road Bowling All Ireland Series
"The 225th running: the Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Society meets in a North York Moors village to weigh berries that have been grown in secret since March, and the champion is measured in drams, not centimetres."
Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Show
✦ Weird & Wonderful"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
"The pinnacle of English sheepdog competition, run across four days on a Cheshire hillside where the country's finest handlers and their Border Collies compete for a place at the International."
English National Sheepdog Trials
"A sailing regatta with roots going back to 1837, combining competitive racing on the water with a Marching Carnival, live music, and a Pink Wig Parade ashore."
Falmouth Week
"Two August days at Bowood House bring clay shooting, falconry, lurcher racing, gun dog scurries, chainsaw speed carving and a craft village together in the grounds of a Wiltshire stately home."
Wiltshire Game and Country Fair
"The 122nd year of this gorgeous one-day show in Rydal Park, with sheepdog trials, foxhound and terrier classes, hound trails, a shepherd's crook show and a fell race packed into a single Lakeland afternoon."
Vale of Rydal Sheepdog Trials and Hound Show
"Three days of the finest Welsh dogs working sheep across a hill field near Brecon, with ice cream from Llanfaes Dairy and a real trial hush over the crowd."
Welsh National Sheepdog Trials
"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
"Teams of two mountain bikers tow a charioteer in a Roman-style chariot in a flat-out dash for the world title."
World Mountain Bike Chariot Racing Championship
✦ Weird & Wonderful"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
"Heavy events, wrestling and a 10K road race come to The Stadium in the genteel Victorian island resort of Rothesay."
Bute Highland Games
"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
"A peat bog trench in mid-Wales. A wetsuit. A snorkel. Two lengths. No conventional swimming strokes allowed. The world comes to watch."
Bog Snorkelling Championship
Villagly Award · Soggiest in the UK ✦ Weird & Wonderful"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)
"One of the biggest prize race meetings of its kind in the UK, three days of flat-out trotting and pacing on a grass track in mid-Wales where the sport has deep roots, with sulkies rattling past the spectators at very close quarters."
Tregaron Festival of Harness Racing
"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
✦ Weird & Wonderful"A mini triathlon that swaps clean water for a peat bog, sending you swimming, cycling and running through mud, ditches and hills."
Chapel Bogathlon
✦ Weird & Wonderful"The 120th year of this tiny, utterly traditional Lakeland show at the foot of Helvellyn, with open sheepdog trials, foxhound and terrier judging and a fell race while the ancient sound of Cumbrian dialect fills the valley."
Patterdale Dog Day
"Since 1852 the Showfield at Grasmere has hosted Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling, fell guides racing, hound trailing and tug-of-war on the August Bank Holiday Sunday, and in 2026 entry is completely free."
Grasmere Sports
"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 & Wonderful"Possibly England's oldest continuous sheepdog trials, running since 1898 in front of Longshaw Lodge on the Peak District moors, where a special train once brought 700 spectators down from Manchester."
Longshaw Sheepdog Trials
"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
"Held on the green beside the River Wharfe since the sixteenth century, with the brutal 1.5 mile dash up Burnsall Fell as its breathless centrepiece."
Burnsall Feast Sports and Classic Fell Race
"The most prestigious sheepdog event in the British Isles, held at the Daylesford Estate where the finest handlers from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales compete across three days for the International Supreme title."
International Sheepdog Championship
"Four days of self-guided walks through some of Britain's finest scenery, ending with a Blister Ball of live music and dancing."
Mid-Wales 4 Day Walking Festival
"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
"On the wide clay plateau of the Hoo Peninsula above the Thames estuary, ploughmen from across Kent compete at Newlands Farm in an autumn match where the vast skies and the distant flicker of the estuary light add a particular melancholy grandeur to the furrows."
Cliffe Ploughing Match
"Crabs (crab apples, thrown from a cart) in the morning, greasy pole and hound trailing through the day, and in the evening competitors push their faces through a horse collar to achieve the most grotesque expression possible, since 1267."
Egremont Crab Fair and World Gurning Championships
Villagly Award · Best Gurn in the UK ✦ Weird & Wonderful"The North Somerset Agricultural Society's ploughing and hedgelaying match brings competitors to farmland on the edge of the Mendips each September, one of the few places in England where the ancient double craft of ploughing and laying a hedge is still judged in competition on the same day."
North Somerset Ploughing Match
"The Staffordshire County Showground organises district ploughing and hedgelaying matches each autumn, and the Eccleshall round draws competitors from across the county to farmland around one of Staffordshire's quieter market towns for a full day of working countryside skills."
Eccleshall District Ploughing and Hedgelaying Match
"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
"The FFF&B Ploughing Society rotates its autumn competition between farms in the Cotswold Water Park country south of Burford, where the flat river gravel fields and the stone walls of the Windrush villages provide a classic setting for working horses and steel ploughs to contest the straightest furrow."
Fairford Faringdon Filkins and Burford Ploughing Match
"A multi-award-winning walking festival in its 27th year, with guided routes across the Island's chalk downland, hidden coves and ancient woodland over nine autumn days, led by knowledgeable volunteers."
Isle of Wight Walking Festival
"Ploughmen from across Monmouthshire turn up to a rotating farm venue each October for their county match, a competition held in the border country between Wales and England where the hedged fields and red Hereford cattle still look much as they always have."
Monmouthshire Ploughing Match
"A brutal 50km ultra up the 25 percent Devil's Staircase that rewards finishers with a devil medal and a bowl of Welsh cawl."
Trailhead Get Jerky Devil's Staircase Ultra Trail Race
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Devon's county ploughing championship brings competitors to Mid Devon farmland each autumn, where red soil and deep Devon banks create the conditions for what ploughmen here consider among the most technically demanding ploughing ground in England."
Devon County Ploughing Championship
"The Hertfordshire Agricultural Competitions Association's annual ploughing match takes competitors to the chalk downland north of Royston each autumn, farming country that has been intensively worked for centuries but where the ploughing match keeps the older skills in regular use."
Hertfordshire Ploughing Match
"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
"The fertile Vale of York farmland around Thirsk hosts county ploughing competition each October, where Herriot country's wide fields and the escarpment of the Hambleton Hills rising to the east frame the furrows of competitors who treat the straight line as a matter of personal honour."
North Yorkshire Ploughing Championship
"Whitewool Farm at East Meon, tucked in the chalk valley below Old Winchester Hill in the South Downs, hosts the Petersfield district ploughing match each autumn where the downland light and the long views south give ploughing competition a backdrop rarely matched in southern England."
Petersfield District Ploughing Match
"A Northamptonshire village green, hundreds of competitors in silly hats, one conker on a string. The 61st running of the most earnest competition you will ever attend in a field."
World Conker Championships
Villagly Award · Toughest Nut in the UK ✦ Weird & Wonderful"Ampton Hall estate near Bury St Edmunds hosts a ploughing competition in the chalky boulder clay of West Suffolk each autumn, a county match that draws skilled ploughmen from across East Anglia to fields that have been arable since the Domesday Book."
Ampton Hall Ploughing Match
"A challenging, mostly off-road half marathon through mountainous scenery run in memory of a much-loved local runner."
Ron Skilton Memorial Half Marathon and 12k
"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
"A fresh-air community ramble through the Cambrian hills to blow away the cobwebs on the first morning of the year."
New Years Day Walk
"A vast rolling rugby scrum, the sway, pushes a leather hood to one of four pubs, a custom said to be 700 years old."
Haxey Hood
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Two parishes play football across pasture below the castle, the ball piped to the field and won by carrying it home."
Alnwick Shrovetide Football
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Up'ards and Down'ards play a two-day game of football across three miles of town and river, goals set at old mills."
Ashbourne Royal Shrovetide Football
✦ Weird & Wonderful"A huge leather ball is fought over along Long Street for two hours, a Shrove Tuesday game dating to 1199."
Atherstone Ball Game
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Women in aprons and headscarves race from the market place to the church flipping pancakes, run since 1445."
Olney Pancake Race
"A small leather ball is passed through a bull ring and fought across the village in a game over 1000 years old."
Sedgefield Shrove Tuesday Ball Game
✦ Weird & Wonderful"After a hare pie is scrambled, two villages battle to carry small barrels across streams in a no-rules contest."
Hallaton Bottle Kicking and Hare Pie Scramble
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Teams roll wooden cheeses down the old Great North Road in the village that gave the cheese its name."
Stilton Cheese Rolling
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Runners carry heavy woolsacks up and down the one-in-four Gumstool Hill, recalling the Cotswold wool trade."
Tetbury Woolsack Races
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Shin-kicking, tug of war and a torchlit procession on Dover's Hill, games first held in 1612."
Robert Dover's Cotswold Olimpicks
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Since 1612: straw in the socks, hands on each other's shoulders, and the aim is to kick shins until someone falls. Judges wear top hats."
World Shin-Kicking Championships
Villagly Award · Bravest Shins in the UK ✦ Weird & Wonderful"Runners race horse-and-rider over 22 miles of Welsh hill country, a wager born in a pub argument."
Man versus Horse Marathon
"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 & Wonderful"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 England's oldest sheepdog trials since 1908, held on a remote Pennine hillside above Holmfirth where handlers and dogs have competed over the same windswept ground for more than a century."
Harden Moss Sheepdog Trials
"You retrace the old cattle drovers' mountain trails to a long-lost Drovers' inn that is reopened for one day to pour locally brewed ale."
Drovers Walks
✦ Weird & Wonderful"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
"Europe's biggest falconry gathering fills the walled parkland of Duncombe Park with swooping hawks and austringers, where a medieval art is practiced at elite modern competition level over two summer days."
British Falconry and Raptor Fair
"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 small, deeply traditional Lakeland show in the shadow of Helvellyn with gundog displays, terrier racing, ferret racing, fell running and dry stone walling, all packed into a village field beside Ullswater."
Ullswater Country Fair
"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