"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

"A cliff-top open-air theatre carved from Cornish granite above Porthcurno Bay, where productions from Shakespeare to musicals run each summer with the Atlantic as backdrop and Rowena Cade's extraordinary creation as the stage."

Minack Theatre Season

"Chester's Victorian park hosts a full summer season of theatre from late June through early September, with Shakespeare, new writing and family shows performed in an intimate outdoor setting a short walk from the city walls."

Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre

"Throughout June, Flamborough villagers fill their gardens and doorsteps with elaborate flowerpot models of Elvis, Spiderman and beloved characters, turning this headland village into a free family trail that has been featured on BBC News."

Flamborough Flowerpot Festival

"Six days of talks, debates, demonstrations and interactive events bringing together Nobel laureates, astronauts and leading scientists to Cheltenham Racecourse each June in the UK's premier science festival."

Cheltenham Science Festival

"The largest gathering of Gypsies and Travellers in Europe, where 10,000 Roma and Traveller families bring hundreds of horse-drawn caravans and 1,000 horses to the Eden Valley town of Appleby for a week of trading, washing horses in the river and living traditions unchanged for centuries."

Appleby Horse Fair

"A Hertfordshire market town's CAMRA festival at the Rugby Club: three days, dozens of ales and ciders, and a town that always seemed like it ought to have a good beer festival."

Hitchin Beer and Cider Festival

"Shin-kicking, tug of war and a torchlit procession on Dover's Hill, games first held in 1612."

Robert Dover's Cotswold Olimpicks

"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

"117 years of North Antrim agriculture in two days, with over 2,000 home industries entries, Clydesdale horses, a tug-of-war and the YFCU football championship packed into the Ballymoney showgrounds."

Ballymoney Show

"Multiple dressed wells appear in Belper's Memorial Gardens each June, where teams press flower petals and seeds into clay frames to create biblical and secular panels that transform this old Derbyshire mill town's park into a gallery."

Belper Well Dressing

"Americana, bluegrass and punk-folk ring out from a medieval hilltop church while the audience sips real ale or Pimms beneath a midsummer evening view."

EdleFest

"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

"Three days at Ardingly covering everything from champion cattle to homemade chutneys. One of the south's great annual gatherings."

South of England Show

"A long-running city folk weekend that fills the pubs with song, and by Saturday evening spills, quietly, into the streets."

St Albans Folk Festival

"An evening of concerts at the United Reformed Church is followed by a day of morris and clog dance winding through this riverside market town."

St Neots Folk Festival

"The 18th running in Shakespeare's town: real ales and ciders across two days in a setting that already draws visitors for far less interesting reasons than this."

Stratford-upon-Avon Beer and Cider Festival

"Folk and world music drift across the meadows of Radford Mill Farm with campfire sessions, gospel singing and tai chi between the stages."

Tangled Roots Festival

"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

"Dinton Pastures Country Park on the edge of Wokingham hosts the Berkshire edition of the Great British Food Festival, a weekend of artisan producers, street food, chef demonstrations and local drink that brings the best of Thames Valley food to a green country park setting."

Great British Food Festival Berkshire

"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

"Britain's largest working steam collection erupts into life for two days in South Downs woodland, with Edwardian fairground rides, narrow-gauge railways and a traction engine that once pulled a whole circus."

Hollycombe Festival of Steam

"The second-largest park in Ireland becomes a one-day agricultural spectacle, with 20,000 visitors arriving at Lurgan Park for cattle, ponies, vintage vehicles and an energetic dog show."

Lurgan Show

"The gardens of Newby Hall open for a weekend of vintage tractors, classic machinery and family activities in the grounds of one of Yorkshire's finest historic houses beside the Ure, an event that combines the beauty of a great garden with the noise and colour of working farm machinery."

Newby Hall Tractorfest

"A walled park, 100+ local producers, and an afternoon that has a habit of turning into a very good evening."

South Downs Food Festival

"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

"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

"A hidden limestone dale village presses flower petals and seeds into clay panels beside its spring, keeping alive an art form that is entirely and unmistakably Derbyshire."

Cressbrook Well Dressing

"Gardens of every size open in a sandstone village beneath Harpole Hills, mixing lush tropical plantings, water features, herb gardens and lovingly tended kitchen plots."

Harpole Open Gardens

"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

"The Swallowfield Horticultural Society opens village and countryside gardens for a charity day, drawing nearly 400 visitors last year to this quietly lovely corner of Berkshire."

Swallowfield Village Open Gardens

"A folk festival in a Norfolk field. The name is the description. Exactly what it sounds like, which is exactly what you want."

Folk in a Field

"The classical festival founded by Benjamin Britten, centred on the concert hall at Snape Maltings."

Aldeburgh Festival

"On a June weekend, Bromyard's market town fills with scarecrows on a Heroes or Villains theme, culminating in a Friday evening grand parade where schools, scouts and families wheel their creations through the streets to the town green for judging."

Bromyard Scarecrow Festival

"The largest free nautical music festival in Europe. The whole harbour town sings, in pubs and on quaysides, all weekend long."

Falmouth Sea Shanty Festival

"Folk music at a ruined 13th-century castle on the Gower peninsula, with the estuary below and the sky doing something remarkable above."

Gower Folk Festival

"A two-week arts festival in one of the Yorkshire Dales' most-loved market villages, with theatre, music, comedy and workshops spread through the cobbled square and surrounding dale."

Grassington Festival

"A beloved coastal Norfolk pub transforms into a three-day celebration of real ales, live music and charitable giving on the edge of the North Norfolk saltmarshes."

Jolly Sailors Annual Ale and Music Festival

"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

"Bells, clogs and fiddles bring this historic market town alive as dance teams parade through the streets in a kaleidoscope of movement and sound."

Wimborne Minster Folk Festival

"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

"Mid-Wales's great one-day gathering: over 1,700 entries, national-standard sheep competitions, and the particular energy of a Welsh agricultural show that genuinely matters to the people in it."

Aberystwyth and Ceredigion County Show

"The 179th show in the orchard county returns to Gosford Forest Park, where prize cattle parade alongside apple producers, champion bakers and 30,000 visitors in one of Northern Ireland's most celebrated one-day shows."

Armagh County Agricultural Show

"The only agricultural show in Flintshire, held at Ty Ucha Farm in the ancient fortified town of Caerwys, with heavy horses, shire horses, Shetland ponies, carriage driving, birds of prey and a live music tent running all day."

Caerwys Agricultural Show

"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

"A mid-summer celebration of steam and vintage machinery at Tynedale Rugby Club, with over 700 exhibits filling a Northumberland riverside field with the sounds and smells of the industrial age."

Corbridge Steam Rally

"A Devon village drapes its lanes in scarecrows each June, closes with Songs of Praise in All Saints Church, and throws the Roger Conant Duck Race down the village stream for two days of family fun."

East Budleigh Scarecrow Festival

"One of the smallest settlements in north Derbyshire creates exquisitely detailed pressed-petal panels beside its village spring, a community act of beauty in a hamlet most maps barely name."

Elmton Well Dressing

"England's highest village, perched at 1,519 feet in the Dark Peak, dresses its wells with petalled pictures that somehow survive wind and weather to dazzle every visitor who climbs up to find them."

Flash Well Dressing

"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

"A weekend celebration of local food producers, street food, live music and art on the Dorset coast at Highcliffe, where artisan stalls, live cooking demonstrations and family entertainment fill the clifftop town each June."

Highcliffe Food and Arts Festival

"East Holmes Field beside the River Wharfe hosts this seventh-year festival that draws artisan food and drink producers from across Yorkshire into the spa town at the foot of the moor, with cookery demonstrations, live music and the kind of local cheese and charcuterie lineup that needs two days to properly work through."

Ilkley Food and Drink Festival

"The UK's largest palaeontology festival spreads talks, palaeoart workshops and hands-on science across a Jurassic Coast town where Mary Anning once hunted fossils."

Lyme Regis Fossil Festival

"Runners race horse-and-rider over 22 miles of Welsh hill country, a wager born in a pub argument."

Man versus Horse Marathon

"A traditional Berkshire fete on the Thames at Pangbourne, with the river as backdrop and a Guinness World Record attempt woven into an afternoon of village stalls, games and family fun."

Pangbourne Village Fete

"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

"The medieval market town of Ruthin in the Vale of Clwyd hosts a summer celebration of contemporary craft at its nationally acclaimed Craft Centre, where the permanent galleries are joined by outdoor makers markets, demonstrations and workshops in the walled courtyard of a converted medieval building."

Ruthin Craft Centre Festival

"A traditional free-entry fete on a Surrey village green, with a Fun Dog Show, plant stalls and local entertainment on one of the prettiest commons in the Surrey Hills."

Shamley Green Village Fete

"Tucked into the Chiltern beech woods at Hill Bottom, this friendly village rally lets children in free among the puffing engines and trade stalls."

Stoke Row Steam Rally

"A proper countryside fair in the Surrey Hills: farm animals, tractor rides, traditional countryside skills, artisan producers and live music around an agricultural college with views over the Downs."

Surrey Hills Country Fair

"Over 100 local food and drink producers and street food traders gather in the grounds of Kentwell Hall in one of Suffolk's finest wool villages for a June celebration of East Anglian produce."

Taste of East Anglia Food and Drink Festival

"A compact and charming vintage tractor and stationary engine rally right at the harbour mouth in West Bay, where Jurassic Coast cliffs frame rows of gleaming machinery from another century."

West Bay Vintage Rally

"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

"Up to eight gardens open beside the River Ise, from small terraced plots to the sweeping grounds of Bosworth House, with a medieval church, a friendly pub and a little bridge to cross."

Arthingworth Open Gardens

"Private gardens open around the home town of the Victorian Snowdrop King to raise funds for the project that plants thousands of bulbs on the town's verges and roundabouts each year."

Shepton Mallet Open Gardens

"More than 15 hidden gardens open in one of Surrey's most photographed villages, tucked between the North Downs and the Tillingbourne stream with roses round every corner."

Shere Open Gardens

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

Strathmore Highland Games

"A dozen gardens centred on two village greens open their gates, including the listed serpentine Crinkle Crankle walled garden at Tostock Place, with homemade cakes in the churchyard tea tent."

Tostock Open Gardens

"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

"A varied group of village gardens open in Repton, one of Mercia's oldest towns, where the prep school grounds and a ruined priory set the scene for a gentle summer day."

Repton NGS Village Gardens

"Two days on the Cheshire Plain where the county's farming tradition meets its food obsession: supreme cattle champions, extraordinary local cheesemakers, and a show that has been held at Tabley since 1949."

Royal Cheshire County Show

"Contemporary and traditional music plays out across the wooded Hopton Court estate alongside a woodland spa, storytelling and four nights under canvas."

Beardy Folk Festival

"The 32nd year of a world-class classical music festival in a Roman village near York, where the Times said it is well on its way to being one of the leading fixtures on the calendar and where the Orchestra of Opera North opens the programme in a meadow."

Northern Aldborough Festival

"A four-acre garden of formal lawns, wildflower meadow and fruit trees opens through the summer at the foot of Painswick, the Cotswolds hilltop village known as the Queen of the Wolds."

Richmond Villages Painswick Garden

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

Royal Highland Show

"Ten years of this boutique midsummer festival deep in a North Yorkshire valley, with reggae, ska, folk and blues on woodland stages, art installations among the trees, craft workshops and the kind of community feel that only an independent festival still run with genuine love can produce."

Willowman Festival

"Over fifty acts play pubs, churches and the open street across this market town's ancient cobbled lanes for a weekend of acoustic music and morris."

Beverley Folk Festival

"Ten days of Cornish midsummer magic rooted in the ancient Feast of St John, with processions, Morris dancers, sea shanties, a torchlit serpent dance on the Eve of Midsummer and the massive Mazey Day street party filling Penzance each June."

Golowan Festival and Mazey Day

"Wales's oldest classical music festival, held in the timbered hall and gardens of Gregynog near Newtown."

Gregynog Festival

"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

"A whole weekend of English and American folk dancing from Playford to the present, with national callers and bands across three halls, marking its 50th year."

Lichfield Folk Festival

"The grounds of a Tudor manor house, local artisan producers, chef demonstrations, and a weekend that develops a habit of producing purchases you hadn't planned on."

Surrey Country & Craft Food Show

"A small volunteer-run seaside festival spills Morris sides, ceilidhs and folk music across the back beach and seafront of a Devon estuary town."

Teignmouth Folk Festival

"Forty years of world-class orchestral, folk and jazz music performed in a soaring medieval wool church at the heart of one of Essex's most perfectly preserved small towns."

Thaxted Festival

"A small, reasonably priced village festival celebrating its 20th year with singarounds, workshops and ballad sessions in the Somerset countryside."

West Somerset Folk Festival

"Over 330 artists open bars, barns, cafes, churches and hallways across Warwickshire and Coventry for two weeks, creating a self-guided trail through villages and towns where you can meet makers working in their own spaces."

Warwickshire Open Studios Summer Art Weeks

"Children dress and dance around an ancient hawthorn said to descend from the Glastonbury Thorn."

Bawming the Thorn

"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

"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

"A harbour town that comes properly alive in midsummer, stalls on the quayside, live music, and the smell of the sea all day."

Emsworth Summer Festival

"A village that has opened its gardens and decked its church with themed floral art since 1963, with over 20 plots ranging from classic cottage to lovably eccentric."

Flore Flower Festival and Open Gardens

"One of Cheshire's best-preserved black-and-white timber-framed villages runs an annual scarecrow trail through its lanes and cottage gardens, where the handmade figures compete for prizes and the village itself, looking entirely unchanged since the Elizabethan period, provides a backdrop that no other scarecrow trail in England can match."

Great Budworth Scarecrow Trail

"A long-running Surrey carnival on the A23 Recreation Ground, with a traditional parade, family entertainment and local community stalls drawing the whole town together on a June Saturday."

Horley Carnival

"One of the country's largest commercial-vehicle gatherings sprawls over 75 Cheshire acres with lawn mower racing, tractor pulling and a falconry display."

Kelsall Steam & Vintage Rally

"Over 70 sea-themed scarecrows fill a Wiltshire village each June, with musicians, stalls and the Elizabeth Coles charity prize; the festival has raised over £120,000 for good causes since it began in 2000."

Kington Langley Scarecrow Festival

"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

"A stone-built village centred on a triangular green uses the midsummer custom of well dressing to turn its quiet lane into a gallery of flower petals and river-gathered seeds pressed into soft Derbyshire clay."

Litton Well Dressing

"A traditional village show on Northiam Playing Fields featuring classic and vintage vehicles against the backdrop of the High Weald."

Northiam Classic Car and Vehicle Show

"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

"High above Lathkill Dale, this tiny limestone village dresses its wells against a backdrop of one of the most beautiful river valleys in the Peak District, where the spring light turns everything to silver."

Over Haddon Well Dressing

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

Peebles Beltane Festival

"81 years of County Down agriculture at Glenbrook Farm, where livestock classes run from poultry to pedigree cattle alongside craft stalls in a village show that has never forgotten why it started."

Saintfield Show

"The Carmarthenshire Young Farmers' Club summer show: a bilingual, energetic all-day event combining traditional livestock classes with a lively showcase of rural Welsh community life."

St Clears YFC Show

"The Surrey village built around the ornamental lake created for George III holds its annual summer fete each June, a classic English village event on the edge of the Royal landscape of Windsor Great Park where marquees go up on the village green and the smell of cut grass and coconut shy mingles with the lake beyond."

Virginia Water Village Fete

"The medieval hilltop village comes alive with 40 stalls, live music and the flavours of East Suffolk in a community market that refreshes four times a year."

Wickham Market Summer Market on the Hill

"Contestants eat as many two-foot lengths of raw stinging nettle as they can in one hour at the Bottle Inn in Marshwood, while a separate competition crowns the grower of the longest nettle within ten miles of the pub."

World Stinging Nettle Eating Championship

"An annual mid-summer fayre with roots dating back to a medieval charter granted by King John, held each June in the quiet North Norfolk village of Aldborough."

Aldborough Village Fayre

"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

"A full range of gardens open in Kilsby, from tiny terraced plots to generous summer borders, in a canal-era village whose name echoes with a great Victorian railway tunnel."

Kilsby Open Gardens

"Twenty acres of gardens and lakeside walks open around a medieval moated manor in a quiet corner of north Norfolk, with roses grown here for centuries and woodland beyond."

Mannington Estate Gardens

"A single-day show at Otterington Hall that quietly holds its own against the bigger county shows, Dales livestock, local producers, and that specifically North Yorkshire sense of unhurried competence."

North Yorkshire County Agricultural Show

"The great flat-county show: machinery, livestock, and vast quantities of local produce under an enormous Lincolnshire sky."

Lincolnshire Show

"Three days of Cornwall at its most itself: cattle, cream teas, local crafts, and the Atlantic light slanting over the showground."

Royal Cornwall Show

"Two days of East Anglia at its proudest: livestock, machinery, food, and the particular flat-sky light of a Norfolk June."

Royal Norfolk Show

"Livestock, horticulture and countryside pursuits at the foot of the Malvern Hills. Three counties, one great show."

Royal Three Counties Show

"A tiny non-profit folk and indie gathering in a private Derbyshire garden north of Matlock celebrates its 20th anniversary with free-roaming family fun."

Exile Music Festival

"The world's first Fairtrade town fills its independent high street with fairy-tale scarecrows placed by residents themselves, finishing with a funfair finale at the sports club."

Garstang Summer Festival and Scarecrow Trail

"A convoy of up to twenty coal-fired steam engines rolls through Tyrone on a summer Friday, filling Hotel Rue car park in Omagh with hissing steel and live music in one of Northern Ireland's most spectacular and unusual public spectacles."

Great Northern Road Run

"The UK's biggest poetry festival fills a black-and-white timbered Herefordshire town with ten days of readings, workshops and spoken word."

Ledbury Poetry Festival

"Road and rail come together at Swanage Railway in a three-day celebration of transport history, with full-size steam engines on the field, heritage trains still running, and a rare chance to ride a brake van down a track not normally open to passengers."

Roads to Rail Steam Rally

"A full village wakes week combining four dressed wells, a scarecrow trail, a carnival parade, wakes royalty crowning, and a car boot sale in one of the Hope Valley's most community-spirited annual gatherings."

Hope Wakes and Well Dressing

"A volunteer-run village carnival revived in 2023 that draws over 1,000 people to Fisher Road for a grand procession, live music, and fairground rides celebrating community spirit."

Bishop's Itchington Carnival

"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

"Run by the Banbury Steam Society, this Oxfordshire field fills with steam engines, shire horses, tank driving and a Battle of Britain flypast."

Bloxham Steam & Country Fair

"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

"A full day of folk sessions, open stages and real ale in the walled gardens of Nowton Park, where the 12th festival gathers East Anglia's finest acoustic talent."

Bury Folk Festival

"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

"70 years since the first rally, this County Durham estate show still gathers huge steam engines, vintage commercials and classic cars in the grounds of Lambton Castle."

Chester-le-Street Steam and Vintage Fair

"Two days of food, drink, music and family fun in Colchester Castle Park, celebrating the produce of Britain's oldest recorded town and the farmers and makers of north Essex."

Colchester Food and Drink Festival

"The whole village tips out onto the leisure centre lawns for parkour displays, local craft stalls and an afternoon of street food in the rolling Essex hills."

Danbury Village Summer Fete

"Twenty-five acoustic acts from folk to blues fill the pubs and barns of Dentdale across a long June weekend, washed down with locally crafted and Scottish ales in one of the most remote and beautiful limestone valleys in the Yorkshire Dales."

Dentdale Music and Beer Festival

"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

"40 floats parade through Farnham on a Stage and Screen theme, followed by a fayre in Gostrey Meadow from 2pm, organised by the Hedgehogs of Farnham since the 1900s."

Farnham Carnival

"A full-day celebration at Windermere Jetty Museum honouring the heritage and traditional boating culture of England's largest lake, exploring the many ways communities have connected with Windermere across the centuries."

Festival of the Lake

"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

"One of the oldest agricultural shows in the Holme Valley, back on its Farnley Tyas showground with heavy horses, livestock lines and a proper Pennine village welcome."

Honley Show

"A family-filled agricultural show held at Farnley Tyas Showground in the Holme Valley, with a wide range of livestock classes, entertainment and trade stands."

Honley Show (Farnley Tyas)

"Tucked between Mam Tor and Win Hill in the Hope Valley, this charming village presses vivid petalled panels beside its springs each summer while the great ridgelines of the Peak stand watch overhead."

Hope Well Dressing

"The Thames-side village of Hurst holds its two-day show each late June with livestock, horticulture, show jumping and a country fayre that draws the farms and market gardens of the Loddon valley together in one of Berkshire's best-attended traditional summer events."

Hurst Show and Country Fayre

"A community agricultural show in one of County Down's most picturesque castle villages on Strangford Lough, with livestock, home industries and the particular pleasure of a small show done properly."

Killyleagh Show

"A quintessential summer fete held in the grounds of Kingston Bagpuize House, a handsome manor garden with unusual planting that doubles as one of Oxfordshire's most charming outdoor settings."

Kingston Bagpuize Village Fete

"A cherished Kent village parade through decorated streets ending at the recreation field for a traditional fete with arena events, with all entry proceeds going to charity."

Knockholt Village Carnival

"A bilingual Welsh and English show in the Conwy Valley, with Welsh Black cattle and Welsh Mountain ponies competing on a June Saturday in the market town below the Carneddau."

Llanrwst Rural Show

"A warmly bilingual Conwy Valley rural show with hand shearing, shire horses, guinea pigs and pairs of sheep led two on a halter."

Llanrwst Show

"The 150th anniversary Bessbrook show brings livestock, horses, home industries, a food village and a fairground to a County Armagh estate kept alive by volunteers since 1876."

Newry Agricultural Show

"Running on Bessbrook farmland since 1869, this is one of Ireland's longest unbroken agricultural shows."

Newry Show

"A gateway village to Chatsworth and Haddon Hall turns its roadside wells into petalled mosaics each late June, a last quiet spectacle before the tourist road grows busy with summer."

Rowsley Well Dressing

"A bilingual community agricultural and rural show held at The Meadows in the Conwy Valley market town, celebrating local farming, livestock, crafts, and rural traditions in the heart of North Wales."

Sioe Wledig Llanrwst Rural Show

"A renowned vintage and makers market spills across the walled gardens of Glenarm Castle for one charming summer weekend."

The Tedberry Market at Glenarm Castle

"Petal pictures dress the wells beside the great Peak District church known as the Cathedral of the Peak."

Tideswell Well Dressing

"Around 15 to 20 private gardens open in a small Welsh market town draped in floral displays, with a plant market and picnic spots beside the River Usk."

Usk Open Gardens

"Five wells dressed over several days in a Peak District village above Bradford Dale, with the blessing on the Saturday afternoon, Youlgrave has one of the most technically accomplished well-dressing traditions in Derbyshire."

Youlgrave Well Dressing

"This moorland village at the foot of Kinder Scout dresses its wells with intricate petal-and-clay panels each late June, turning the stone streets of this northern Peak District gateway into a week of living art."

Hayfield Well Dressing

"Almost the whole of this Wensleydale village in the Yorkshire Dales joins in, opening around twenty gardens with refreshments served all day in the Village Institute."

Carperby Village Open Gardens

"In its 57th year and the first open gardens event of its kind in the country, around twenty gardens welcome visitors with a vintage tractor rally and Morris dancers winding through a timbered Brett valley village."

Chelsworth Open Gardens

"A celebration of the prized Comber Earlies potato, with a food village in this County Down market town."

Comber Earlies Food Festival

"Eight gardens open along the winding lanes of a postcard village above the River Dart, with a plant stall on The Level and two riverside pubs serving in support of Rowcroft Hospice."

Dittisham Open Gardens

"Dozens of walled town gardens open in one of England's best-preserved medieval market towns, alongside a garden market in the ancient centre."

Faversham Open Gardens and Garden Market

"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

"A dozen gardens in a pretty village near Richmond open up, one holding the National Collection of sea-holly eryngiums, with a miniature gardens competition for under-12s."

Gilling West Secret Gardens

"A Lincolnshire village vintage show with over 250 classic vehicles, a Lancaster Bomber flypast and the 19th World Egg Throwing Championships, where international teams hurl eggs for distance, accuracy and sheer spectacular mess."

Swaton Vintage Day and World Egg Throwing Championships

"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

"One of Derbyshire's most traditional wakes weeks, with the crowning of the Wakes Carnival Queen at the historic Market House, a wakes service, orienteering, and a timed hill climb on East Bank."

Winster Wakes

"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

"On St Peter's Day the children of an Eden Valley village process to church in flower crowns and rush crosses, the girls crowned, the boys bearing crosses, a quiet survival of a once common rite."

Warcop Rushbearing

"About 25 Cotswold stone cottage gardens open in a village famous for its roses, with cake stalls, a plant stall and flowers blazing in the medieval church."

Langford Village Open Gardens

"Three operas including La Boheme, Eugene Onegin and Handel's Giulio Cesare are performed across 26 summer nights in the neo-classical Grange at Northington, a Hampshire country house of exceptional theatrical beauty."

The Grange Festival

"Four wells dressed in flowers, seeds and clay by local hands, blessed on a June Sunday afternoon, and left to fade through the week. An ancient Derbyshire custom, unchanged."

Bakewell Well Dressing