"On the first of October in this small Hertfordshire village, the leaves from Church Lane are swept onto the road so that an elderly man from the parish can roll down the lane and the children can shout after him, a custom so old and so eccentric that even the villagers are not entirely sure what it commemorates."
Braughing Old Man's Day
✦ Weird & Wonderful"A relaxed charity festival run for a historic village institute near Bolton where every artist gives their time free so all the proceeds support the Barlow."
Edgworth Folk Festival
"A brand new not for profit festival on a historic coastal peninsula mixing folk concerts, Morris dancing and a 1940s themed day at a Victorian gun battery museum."
Headland Folkfest
"Kent's largest free-to-enter food festival takes over the clifftop town of Broadstairs each early October, bringing together the county's cheese, hop, apple and sea-caught fish producers in a harbour town that smells of the sea and autumn simultaneously and where Charles Dickens once came to think."
Broadstairs Food Festival
"Ten days of author talks, debates and performances filling the regatta town of Henley-on-Thames each October, one of England's most distinguished literary festivals in one of its most beautiful river settings."
Henley Literary Festival
"Norfolk's Rural Capital of Food celebrates its Cittaslow status each October with a weekend market, a Big Slow Brunch and a festival dinner that showcases the county's finest local producers."
Aylsham Food Festival
"A charter sheep fair held every October since 1238 in this south Lincolnshire village."
Corby Glen Sheep Fair
"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"This small Wealden village keeps the old Sussex tradition alive with a torchlit procession, costumed marchers and a village bonfire and fireworks."
Northiam Bonfire
✦ Weird & Wonderful"More than three hundred varieties of apple are laid out for tasting alongside local ciders pressed from the orchards of three neighbouring counties."
Tenbury Applefest
"This market-town celebration brings apple pressing, cider tastings and orchard stalls to the streets above the River Wye as part of Herefordshire's apple fortnight."
Ross-on-Wye AppleFest
"Thirty specialist nurseries gather at Christopher Lloyd's legendary experimental garden for a weekend of rare plants, short plantsmanship talks at the stalls and famous cake."
Great Dixter Autumn Plant Fair
"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
"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
"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
✦ Weird & Wonderful"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
"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
"The whole of the old seaport town rings with hearty singing as shanty crews from around the world fill pubs, boats and historic buildings with songs of the sea."
Harwich International Shanty Festival
"Ten days of cheese trails, farm tastings, guided walks with cheesemakers and special menus spread across every village and dale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, celebrating the artisan producers behind Wensleydale, Swaledale and more."
Yorkshire Dales Cheese Festival
"The world's oldest literary festival fills Cheltenham's Regency venues for ten October days with 500 events, from Booker Prize winners to children's authors, making it the essential autumn gathering for book lovers."
Cheltenham Literature Festival
"The last show of the English season, held in the Coquet Valley in mid-October with the Cheviots above and Northumberland all around, Border sheep, sheepdog trials and views that make the drive entirely worth it."
Alwinton Border Shepherds' Show
"The self styled Rural Capital of Food throws its October festival around the pork pie and the Stilton, with one of the largest gatherings of artisan cheesemakers in the country."
Melton Mowbray Food Festival
"Across hidden farms, cider barns and manor gardens around the Marcle Ridge you can watch perry pears being pressed and taste makers' wares straight from the cask."
Big Apple Harvestime
"Over 250 ploughmen and women compete across fifteen classes from horse teams to crawlers, with steam ploughing engines and a tank ploughing demonstration thrown in."
British National Ploughing Championships & Country Festival
"The 75th championship brings 250 of Britain's finest ploughmen and women to a Warwickshire farm, with steam ploughing engines, heavy horses and 300 plots across 15 classes."
British National Ploughing Championships
"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
"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 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
"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
"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"The Monday after October 10th brings a centuries-old charter fair to the streets of Sherborne, where by tradition hurdy-gurdy music plays all day and the fair is proclaimed from the town hall steps, a noisy autumn custom that has been held in this abbey town since the thirteenth century."
Sherborne Pack Monday Fair
"A charter fair famous in Devon song, filling the stannary town's streets with stalls and rides each October."
Tavistock Goosey Fair
"Violinist Rachel Podger leads world-class period-instrument music in the intimate churches and halls of a small market town wrapped in the Brecon Beacons."
Brecon Baroque 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
"Two weeks of classical concerts, theatre, circus, talks and family events filling Canterbury Cathedral and historic venues across this ancient city, one of England's longest-running arts festivals and the cultural heartbeat of Kent each autumn."
Canterbury Festival
"The illuminated carnival procession through Ottery St Mary three weeks before Tar Barrel Night, with floats, fancy dress and the whole town building momentum toward its most extraordinary annual tradition."
Ottery St Mary Carnival
"Set among the National Fruit Collection's two thousand apple varieties, the fair lets you taste forgotten heritage fruit and tour the living orchard library that holds them."
Brogdale Apple Fair
"The farm shop team lay out apples gathered from local orchards for sampling against the backdrop of one of England's grandest landscape gardens."
Apple Day at Stourhead
"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
"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
"A one-day showcase of the best dairy animals in Wales and the Borders at Carmarthen Showground, where Welsh dairy farming culture is celebrated through cookery demonstrations, children's competitions and the kind of competitive pride that takes years of early mornings to earn."
Welsh Dairy Show
"Through October and into November, the medieval Rufford Old Hall fills its grounds with scarecrows on a pop stars and music legends theme, making it one of the grandest and longest-running Halloween-season scarecrow trails in England."
Rufford Old Hall Scarecrow Festival
✦ Weird & Wonderful"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 street fair dating to a 13th century charter, once a pony fair, now stalls and rides through the Devon town."
Bampton Charter Fair
"One of England's oldest surviving calendar customs, Punkie Night sees Hinton St George children parade through the village at dusk swinging handmade lanterns carved from mangelwurzels, accompanied by Morris dancing and the traditional Punkie Song."
Hinton St George Punkie Night
"Part festival and part ritual on the eve of Samhain, this celebration of Cornish folklore brings hobby horses, Mari Lwyds, ancestor rites and Morris dancers to a magical Arthurian village."
The Dark Gathering
✦ Weird & Wonderful