"Townsfolk hoist barrels soaked in tar and set alight onto their shoulders and run them flaming through packed Devon streets on bonfire night, a roaring, slightly terrifying inheritance passed down through local families."
Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels
Villagly Award · Fieriest Night in the UK ✦ Weird & Wonderful"Six rival bonfire societies fill the narrow streets with blazing torches, burning crosses and exploding effigies in the wildest Fifth of November spectacle in the world."
Lewes Bonfire Night Celebrations
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Villagers ring the church bells discordantly to scare off evil then heave a one-tonne boulder over with crowbars to keep the Devil trapped beneath for another year."
Turning the Devil's Stone
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Locals shoulder flaming barrels of tar and carry them blazing through the seaside town centre in a fiery survival of an old Devon Bonfire Night custom."
Seaton Tar Barrels
✦ Weird & Wonderful"A weekend festival drawing poets from across the world to the Suffolk coast each November, with readings, talks and performances filling Aldeburgh's Jubilee Hall and seafront venues in one of England's most concentrated celebrations of poetry."
Poetry in Aldeburgh
"Blazing tar barrels are dragged through this West Devon town on sleds at dawn, followed by a torchlit procession of tractor-pulled tableaux and marching bands."
Hatherleigh Carnival and Tar Barrels
✦ Weird & Wonderful"The UK's oldest carnival sends a mile of dazzlingly illuminated carts through town before ranks of squibbers light hundreds of fizzing fireworks overhead in unison."
Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival
✦ Weird & Wonderful"This Kent town builds an eleven metre satirical effigy of a chosen public figure each year and blows it sky high with gunpowder and flame."
Edenbridge Bonfire
✦ Weird & Wonderful"Visiting societies and burning torches process past the abbey where the Battle of Hastings was fought, ending with a roaring bonfire and fireworks."
Battle Bonfire
✦ Weird & Wonderful"More than 100 craft and food stalls fill the Great Court of Chatsworth House for five weeks each winter, set against one of England's grandest country houses with the Peak District as backdrop and the illuminated light trail running after dark."
Chatsworth Christmas Market
"Four free days of folk, bluegrass, americana and indie spread across the bars, coffee shops and hotels of two North Coast towns, now in its 16th year as Northern Ireland's most beloved winter music weekend."
Atlantic Sessions
"A small Exmoor town on the banks of the River Barle draws the likes of Michael Morpurgo and Patrick Gale for an intimate four-day celebration of reading."
Dulverton Exmoor Literary Festival
"A lantern parade winds through the colourful hilltop town as independent Welsh shops throw open their doors for a sparkling pre-Christmas weekend."
Llandeilo Festival of Senses
"Sixty handpicked chalets fill the Great Court of Blenheim Palace for five weeks, with artisan gifts, seasonal food and drink and a Cinderella-themed illuminated light trail winding through the palace grounds after dark."
Blenheim Palace Christmas Market
"Now in its 26th year, East Anglia's best-loved Christmas shopping event fills the Norfolk Showground for three days with hundreds of artisan makers, festive food and the warm buzz of early gift hunting."
Norfolk Festive Gift and Food Show
"A ten-day celebration of real ale centred on the Neuadd Arms Hotel in Britain's smallest town, anchored by the Real Ale Wobble cycle ride and the Real Ale Ramble walking event across the Mid Wales hills."
Mid Wales Beer Festival
"A waymarked mountain bike ride where beer tokens buy you locally brewed real ale at the finish, followed by a beer while your bike gets washed."
Real Ale Wobble
✦ Weird & Wonderful"A torchlit pageant winds through the medieval cobbled hilltop town before a blazing boat is consigned to the flames at The Salts."
Rye Bonfire Pageant
✦ Weird & Wonderful"The wide High Street of this Wealden market town fills with over 100 stalls for ten days each November, coinciding with the Christmas tree lights switch-on and drawing visitors from across Kent for street food, artisan groceries and handmade crafts across three outdoor stages."
Tenterden Christmas Market
"Llandeilo's free three-day pre-Christmas festival fills the independent shops, cafes and streets of this Carmarthenshire market town with food, crafts, live music and a festive lights switch-on every third weekend of November."
Llandeilo Festival of Senses (Llandeilo Christmas Weekend)
"A walk through unspoilt countryside with the organisers' own free beer stops at each checkpoint, run alongside the town's 10-day beer festival."
Real Ale Ramble
✦ Weird & Wonderful"A whole village rises before dawn for a Bonfire Breakfast and a guy competition before a torchlit procession winds to the recreation ground for grand fireworks."
Robertsbridge Bonfire
✦ Weird & Wonderful"This tiny Peak District village glows with one of the most famous festive light displays in the country as Santa parades in by tractor."
Castleton Christmas Lights Switch-On
"Black-and-white timbered Tudor streets light up as a festive market lines Churchyardside in this characterful Cheshire market town."
Nantwich Christmas Lights and Festive Market
"Alnwick Castle's historic Guest Hall opens for a one-day Christmas fair with handcrafted gifts from local artisans, seasonal food and twinkling lights, all in aid of Newcastle Hospitals Charity's Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Unit."
Alnwick Castle Christmas Fair
"Forty local crafters and artisan makers fill the medieval village hall of this Suffolk wool town for a two-day Christmas market, running alongside the award-winning Lavenham Farmers Market and a pop-up cafe in one of England's best-preserved medieval streetscapes."
Lavenham Christmas Craft Market
"The Market House in England's highest market town fills with local and regional makers selling hand-crafted wood, knitwear, jewellery and ceramics for a special November Christmas show, deep in the winter silence of Wensleydale."
Hawes Christmas Craft Fair
"One of England's finest stone towns fills its streets with stalls for its Christmas market each November, where Georgian and limestone architecture provides a festive backdrop that has been drawing visitors and film crews to Stamford for generations."
Stamford Christmas Market
"England's smallest county town fills its compact market square and the surrounding lanes with stalls each November, a Christmas market in a place most of England has never found that rewards those who do with independent shops and a genuinely unspoiled market town atmosphere."
Uppingham Christmas Market
"Lavenham Village Hall fills with more than forty local makers and artisan crafters across a November weekend, with the award-winning Lavenham Farmers Market running outside on the Sunday."
Lavenham Two Day Christmas Craft Market
"Hundreds of stalls spill through Georgian streets and around the cathedral in one of East Anglia's most atmospheric small-town festive markets."
Bury St Edmunds Christmas Fayre
"A warm Hampshire village evening of handbell ringers, mulled wine and local small businesses opening in the parish hall on a late November Thursday, the kind of Christmas market that has never tried to be anything other than itself."
Ropley Christmas Market
"A makers market, castle light trail and a young farmers tractor run kick off Christmas in one of England's finest medieval food towns."
Ludlow Winter Festival
"Each late November, Bourton-on-the-Water places a decorated Christmas tree in the River Windrush and gathers villagers on the green for a carol-led lights switch-on, making it one of the Cotswolds' most distinctive festive traditions."
Bourton-on-the-Water Christmas Lights Switch On
"On two consecutive Fridays in late November and early December, Broadway's honey-stone High Street stays open until 8.30pm with Christmas lights, live music, mulled wine, street entertainers, and pony sleigh rides drawing festive crowds to the village."
Broadway Late Night Christmas Shopping
"Cobbled Yorkshire Dales lanes fill with stalls, brass bands and the scent of mulled wine in this beloved replacement for the old Dickensian festival."
Grassington Christmas Market
"The de Rothschild gardens in the New Forest open their gates for two festive weekends with more than 75 local producers, a Father Christmas in a steam railway carriage and an illuminated night train through the woodland after dark."
Exbury Christmas Fair
"The narrow streets of this West Sussex market town host a makers Christmas market each late November in the shadow of Petworth House's vast estate wall, a properly artisan alternative to the big city versions with only locally produced gifts on offer."
Petworth Christmas Market
"The village green of this pretty Georgian North Norfolk village is wrapped in festoon lights for its annual Christmas light switch-on, surrounded by food stalls, craft sellers, ponies, Santa and fairground rides in a scene that somehow looks exactly like a Christmas card should."
Burnham Market Christmas
"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 handsome market town at the gates of Blenheim Palace dresses its stone streets for a Victorian Christmas each late November, with costumed traders, a Santa parade and independent shops that have been taking Christmas seriously in this Oxfordshire town for longer than the great park next door has had public visitors."
Woodstock Victorian Christmas
"Burford's historic high street and medieval St John the Baptist Church host a combined Christmas market with over 20 craft stalls and a festive lights switch-on at The Tolsey, drawing the whole town together on the last Saturday of November."
Burford Christmas
"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
"Held over two days at the atmospheric Tweedies Bar and Lodge on Red Bank Road, this outdoor Christmas market draws artisan stallholders from across Cumbria and pairs local food and festive drinks with a Lake District village backdrop."
Grasmere Christmas Market
"Settle's annual market fills the historic Market Place with food, drink and produce stalls, rounded off with a community fireworks display and the town Christmas lights switch-on at dusk."
Settle Christmas Market
"Pinder Hall in this beautiful Thames-side village fills with local artisan makers each late November, a genuinely community-scale market that supports the Maidenhead Baby Bank and puts carol singers on the street outside."
Cookham Christmas Market
"The magnificent Victorian Market Hall of this Welsh market town at the foot of the Brecon Beacons hosts its Christmas markets on late Sundays in November and December, offering local crafts and food in one of the grandest working market buildings in Wales."
Abergavenny Christmas Market
"One of Europe's finest prime stock shows over two winter days at the Royal Welsh Showground, where Welsh farmers bring their best cattle, sheep and pigs before Christmas and thousands of visitors shop for exceptional Welsh food, crafts and countryside products."
Royal Welsh Winter Fair