"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
"Cambridge Street on a Thursday morning: local producers, unhurried browsing, and an excellent reason to be somewhere beautiful."
Harrogate Farmers Market
"Local growers and producers gather in the heart of this honey-stone Cotswold wool town high on the wolds."
Stow-on-the-Wold Farmers' Market
"A FARMA-accredited market spilling out of the historic Market Hall in a Westmorland Dales village just minutes off the M6, with church teas and primary-school stalls."
Orton Farmers' Market
"Around forty-five stalls of farmed goods and crafts gather on Ripley's beautiful village green, all run by volunteers who plough the profits back into local charities."
Ripley Farmers' Market
"An honest market town doing what market towns do, on the second Sunday of every month. The kind of morning that stays with you."
Bedale Farmers Market
"Cheese, bread and chocolate stalls set up in Roberts Park within Titus Salt's perfectly preserved Victorian model village and World Heritage Site."
Saltaire Farmers' Market
"Sixteen days of classical music, jazz and spoken word in the churches, halls and historic spaces of a handsome Sussex market town. Sheku Kanneh-Mason among the 2026 headliners."
Petworth Summer Festival
"A friendly community market held every third Saturday in the ancient village of Clun, running from 10am to noon and now established at Clun Memorial Hall, offering locally produced goods in the heart of one of South Shropshire's most picturesque villages."
Clun Village Market
"Broad Street in a cress-farm town, third Sunday of the month. Everything local. Nothing superfluous. The right kind of Sunday."
Alresford Farmers Market
"Dales farmers and makers fill the cobbled Market Square of this Wharfedale village with artisan bread, preserves and locally reared meat."
Grassington Farmers' Market
"Billed as the biggest in Devon, the Civic Square fills with food and craft stalls in this famously bohemian South Hams town."
Totnes Good Food Sunday Market
"A regular monthly market on Ludlow's historic Castle Square showcasing local growers, bakers, cheesemakers and food producers from across South Shropshire and the Marches."
Ludlow Local Producers' Market
"A heritage steam and vintage rally held across a beautiful private country estate near Liskeard, celebrating working engines and rural craft."
Boconnoc Steam Fair
"Three wells dressed with intricate flower-and-clay panels anchor a full week of events in this limestone gorge village each late July, including a fell race, model boat race, treasure hunt and brass band on the village green."
Stoney Middleton Well Dressing
"Over 100 events in 8 days on the Jurassic Coast, with a Wild West theme for 2026, a carnival procession, air display, fireworks finale, Titan the Robot, Granny Turismo shopping trolley dancers and open water swimming, all free and raising £40k for local charities."
Swanage Carnival Week
"On the last Saturday of the month the Agricultural Business Centre fills with Peak District producers, in the town that gave its name to the pudding."
Bakewell Farmers' Market
"A multi-award-winning north Oxfordshire market where thirty stalls fill the Market Place and craft sellers spill into the church, even a Swedish cook in the mix."
Deddington Farmers' Market
"Gateway Square on the last Saturday of the month. New Forest produce, familiar faces, and no particular reason to rush home."
Ringwood Farmers Market
"A week-long seaside carnival in the fishing town of Looe, with a traditional Furry Dance, live music, and the Polperro Fisherman's Choir."
Looe Carnival Week
"Started as a horse show and still built around the grand parade of Shires, ponies and hounds, Woolsery Show is 120 years of North Devon rural life in a single summer Monday near the dramatic Clovelly coast."
Woolsery Show
"A market under the Hartley Wintney oaks on the last Sunday of the month, Hampshire smallholders and bakers in a famously leafy village on the old coaching road."
Hartley Wintney Farmers' Market
"The Cathedral city's market, twice monthly. A Sunday morning with the High Street, the close, and nowhere better to be."
Winchester Market
"Three July days at New Park, Brockenhurst: New Forest ponies, cattle from across the south, local food, country sports, and a showground set inside one of England's ancient royal hunting grounds."
New Forest and Hampshire County Show
"One of the largest one-day agricultural shows in the North of England, set in the magnificent parkland of Duncombe Park with over 250 trade stands, sheepdog trials, a brass band and a showcase of local livestock and crafts."
Ryedale Show
"Singers and players gather from across the world to perform opera and a new chamber version of Britten's War Requiem inside a tiny medieval collegiate church a mile from the wild North Cornwall coast."
St Endellion Summer Festival
"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
"20,000 visitors pour into the Clogher Valley showground for 500 cattle, 500 sheep and 1,000 horses, with a vintage display that turns this mid-Tyrone show into one of the province's most complete country days."
Clogher Valley Show
"West Somerset's biggest country fair, held on the lawns below a National Trust castle for its 45th year. Livestock, falconry, crafts, food and a strong argument for leaving the city behind."
Dunster Country Fair
"The world's largest independent cheese competition, judging entries from over 50 countries, sits at the centre of the Nantwich Show's full day of livestock, rural crafts, food and family entertainment at Reaseheath College."
Nantwich Show and International Cheese Awards
"A traditional one-day agricultural show held at Kitley Lawns each summer, a much-loved fixture on the South Devon rural calendar."
Yealmpton Show
"The original. Outdoor stages, Cherry Hinton Hall, world-class folk since 1965. The standard everything else is quietly measured against."
Cambridge Folk Festival
"Four days of roots, folk and rock music on a Hampshire farm near a medieval village, with headliners alongside comedy, theatre, storytelling and workshops in a festival that has won Best UK Festival for its relaxed, family-friendly atmosphere."
Wickham Festival
"Named for the spectral black dog that terrorised St Mary's Church in 1577, this brilliant folklore festival fills the town with art, parade, storytelling and a ritual burning of demons."
Black Shuck Festival
✦ Weird and Wonderful