September is the month British food shows off. The harvest is in, the oysters are back, and the festival calendar goes from busy to faintly ridiculous — the weekend of the 12th alone has fifteen events on it.
What struck me putting this together is how many of the best ones are free, ancient, or run by volunteers who aren't making a penny from it. Ludlow invented the modern food festival and is still going after 32 years. Conwy has been trading honey under a royal charter for seven centuries. Nantwich shuts three sites of its town centre, brings in over 200 producers and charges nobody a thing. And in a corner of Hackney, two women who funded it out of their own pockets are throwing London's first festival dedicated entirely to pickles.
There are famous faces if that's what you're after — John Torode and Lisa Faulkner at Thoresby, Matt Tebbutt turning up at both Stranraer and Nottinghamshire, Sam Heughan talking oysters in Dumfries and Galloway, friend of Myfoody - MasterChef finalist Kristen Dodd on demo duty in east London. But the real story this month is the small, stubborn, long-running stuff.
Every festival I could find is below, week by week, with what actually makes each one worth the drive. As always: check the date on the festival's own site before you travel. Several listings sites had dates this month a bit wrong.
Find what's near you
52 events in this guide
The map loads from Google. Nothing is sent to them until you open it.
The first weekend: 1–6 September
Penzance Food Festival — Penzance, Cornwall (3–6 September). Four days in Penlee Park marking the end of summer, now in its third year. Live-fire cooking, chefs' demonstrations, music and shared feasts, with a producer tent covering bakery, cheese, butchery, preserves and small-batch spirits alongside local makers. Free to walk in and wander, though a handful of workshops and special events are ticketed and the full programme lands closer to the time. Same team behind the Falmouth and Newquay food festivals, so they know what they're doing.
Nantwich Food Festival — Nantwich, Cheshire (4–6 September). Three sites across a Cheshire market town, over 200 exhibitors, two live music stages, and it costs nothing to walk in. The whole thing is run by volunteers, which makes the scale of it faintly miraculous — it's won a Cheshire Life Food & Drink Award and there's a park and ride laid on to cope with the crowds. If you want to actually meet producers rather than queue twenty minutes for a burger, make it this one.
Bovey Festival — Food, Drink, Craft — Bovey Tracey, Devon (Saturday 5 September). A free one-day festival that takes over the middle of a Dartmoor-edge town: craft in the Methodist Hall, then food and drink the length of Fore Street. Gin and cocktails, brownies, preserves, chocolate, cheeses and chillies from South West producers, with pop-up kitchens doing lunch while you browse. It's run by Bovey Larder, who took on the early-September slot from the long-running Nourish Festival, so the weekend has history behind it even though the name is new. 10am to 5pm.
Faversham Hop Festival — Faversham town centre, Kent (5–6 September). One of the largest free festivals in the country, in its 36th year, run by volunteers and drawing something like 30,000 people into a medieval market town. It marks the end of the hop harvest: more than 70 bands across five stages, Morris dancing, market stalls, street food, funfair rides, hop crowns, and a hop blessing ceremony on the Sunday morning. Shepherd Neame have been brewing in Faversham since 1698 — Britain's oldest brewer — and send their vintage vehicles through the town in the morning parades. Their seasonal Late Red appears in pubs across the weekend alongside Hop Pocket, a limited-edition green hop ale made with fresh hops that go from bine to beer in a matter of hours. Free to attend.
North Norfolk Food & Drink Festival — Holkham Hall, Norfolk (5–6 September). Seventeenth year, free entry, held inside the walled garden at Holkham — huge brick and flint walls keeping the coastal wind off, and sixty-odd Norfolk producers selling fresh meat and game, vegetables, artisan beer, bread, tarts, juices and chocolate. There's a cookery theatre, face painting for the children, and dogs are welcome. Another not-for-profit run by a volunteer committee. Take cash as well as cards; there's no cashpoint on site. Entrance is free but £6.50 for parking if heading there by car.
Meatopia — Tobacco Dock, London (3–6 September). Four days, more than 85 chefs, and every single dish cooked over wood or charcoal. Meatopia's rule is that each chef creates one dish exclusively for the festival and the menu changes every day, so this is emphatically not festival food in a sad paper tray. This year's roster includes Sam Evans and Shauna Guinn of Hang Fire BBQ, Danielle Heron of Osma in Manchester making her debut off the back of L'Enclume and Maaemo in Oslo, Adriana Cavita, Melissa Thompson, Blacklock, Gunpowder and Birmingham's Original Patty Men. Founded in New York, in London since 2013, and strict about ethical sourcing right down to the charcoal. Tickets are sold by the day, so choose carefully.
Armagh Food & Cider Weekend — Armagh, Northern Ireland (3–6 September). Four days in the Orchard County timed to the apple harvest: farm-to-fork feasts, pop-up dining, immersive culinary trails and behind-the-scenes orchard tours where the cider actually comes from. Northern Ireland's Food Heartland doing the thing it does better than anywhere else. Their own line on cider — drink local, drink less, drink better — is a good one to take home with you.
Loch Lomond Food & Drink Festival — Loch Lomond Shores (5–6 September). Opens Scotland's Food & Drink Fortnight, which puts on 200-odd events across the country over the following two weeks. The Gourmet Market brings together local producers, artisan makers and international street food, set against Ben Lomond, which is not a bad backdrop for lunch. The celebrity chef line-up was still being kept back at the time of writing — worth a check before you go, because they've promised names.
Harbour Feastival — Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire (4–6 September). A long weekend of street food traders and live entertainment right on the harbour, from the Street Food Circus team. Less about shopping for produce than eating extremely well by the sea, which at the tail end of a Pembrokeshire summer is no bad way to spend a Saturday.
Foodies Festival Bath — Bath, Somerset (4–6 September). The Bath leg of the national touring brand: chef demo theatres, a Cake & Bake tent, a drinks and cocktail line-up, street food and headline live music in the evenings. Worth being clear what it is — a polished, ticketed day out with music rather than a local producers' market. Judged on those terms it's a good one, and Bath is a fine place to be doing it.
Sausage & Cider Festival — Camperdown Park, Dundee (5 September). Over 30 ciders and more than 20 varieties of sausage, plus food stalls and live music. It is precisely what the name promises and makes no attempt to be anything else, which is refreshing.
Dorset County Show — Dorchester, Dorset (5–6 September). Strictly an agricultural show rather than a food festival, but one of the biggest in the south and with a serious food and drink offering — worth knowing about if you like your producers standing next to the livestock they came from.
South Wales Vegan Festival — Tramshed, Cardiff (5 September). A one-day indoor gathering of plant-based producers, street food and stalls in Cardiff's Tramshed.
Westmorland County Show — Lane Farm, Crooklands, near Kendal, Cumbria (9–10 September). An agricultural show rather than a food festival, but it earns its place here on the strength of the food hall alone — billed as the largest local food hall in the North West, with artisan chocolates, cheeses, pies and gins from Cumbrian producers. Over 30,000 people come through, the livestock classes are the heart of it, and there's Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling, show jumping, forestry and rural crafts alongside several hundred trade stands. If you like meeting producers standing a few yards from the animals and the land they came from, this is the one. Ticketed, parking free.
The big weekend: 11–14 September
This is the busiest weekend of the year for British food festivals, so apologies in advance for the diary clash.
Ludlow Food Festival — Ludlow Castle, Shropshire (11–13 September). The one that started it all. Ludlow was Britain's first food festival, it's now in its 32nd year, and it's still held inside a castle. More than 180 producer stalls from the Marches, a Live Fire Stage where UK and international chefs cook over open flame and Kadai fire bowls, the British Live Fire Cooking Championships, a Slow Food Garden, and the famous sausage and ale trails that send you round the town's butchers and pubs on foot. Ludlow shaped the modern appetite for regional food events long before every weekend had a tasting tent. If you go to one festival this year purely on reputation, make it this.
Stranraer Oyster Festival — Stranraer, Dumfries & Galloway (11–13 September). Loch Ryan holds Scotland's last wild native oyster fishery, which would be reason enough on its own. Add the Scottish Oyster Shucking Championships, cookery demonstrations from Matt Tebbutt, Tony Singh, Julie Lin and Rosemary Shrager, and Sam Heughan in conversation on the Sunday, and it's the best food weekend in Scotland this month. Community-run, with proceeds going to the Stranraer Development Trust — a town that decided its own oysters were worth making a fuss about, and was right.
The Big Brine — Hackney Bridge, London (12–13 September). London's first festival given over entirely to pickling, brining and fermentation, and a debut edition self-funded by its two founders. Hands-on sessions with Nick Vadasz — the Picklesman himself — a demo stage hosted by Mob Kitchen's Ayala Daly, MasterChef 2026 finalist Kristen Dodd cooking live on the Saturday morning, chef takeovers, and a Saturday-night after-party with DJs and drag performers. There's nothing remotely like it elsewhere on this list, and first years are always worth supporting.
Leamington Food and Drink Festival — Pump Room Gardens, Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire (12–13 September). Nineteenth year, free to attend, and set in the Pump Room Gardens right in the middle of town. Around 120 exhibitors covering local and regional producers, street food and craft drinks, with live entertainment from the bandstand and demonstrations running through both days in the Live Cookery Theatre. It's delivered by BID Leamington and run as a community festival, with volunteers doing much of the work. One nice touch: arrive by train and take your valid ticket dated 12 or 13 September to the information tent, and you'll get a free festival drinks cup. The station is a five-minute walk from the gardens. Open 10am to 6pm.
Tide and Turf Food Festival — Portavogie, County Down (Saturday 12 September, 12–5pm). Part of Taste Autumn, a borough-wide celebration of local food and drink running across Ards and North Down from 11 to 27 September. Portavogie is a working fishing harbour, and this is seafood eaten about as close to the boats as you'll manage anywhere on this list — artisan stalls, live cookery demonstrations and a relaxed seaside afternoon. Stevie McCarry, chef-owner of Lir, and Suzie Lee, winner of BBC Best Home Cook and a cookbook author, are both cooking, showing off local ingredients and talking through the journey from shore to plate. Supported by Northern Ireland's Regional Food Programme.
Conwy Honey Fair — Conwy, north Wales (12 September). Said to be one of Britain's oldest food festivals, going back more than 700 years, with its date set by a Royal Charter granted by Edward I. For one day the streets of the walled town fill with honey, honey products, beekeeping stalls, preserves, sweet things, plants and crafts. It has grown from a honey market into a wider celebration of local produce without ever losing the beekeeping at its heart.
Barnet Food Festival — RAF Museum London, Colindale (12–13 September). Two days on the museum's airfield, with street food from around the world, live music across the weekend and a free Kids Zone included in the ticket. An unusual setting — you're eating between the hangars — and the museum itself is worth the trip. Adults £10, under-16s free.
St Fagans Food Festival — St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff (12–13 September). Over 80 food, drink and craft stalls scattered among the museum's rebuilt historic buildings, with cookery demonstrations happening inside the old houses themselves, which is a lovely way to see the place. Pizzas, tacos, doughnuts and ice cream for eating there, plenty of vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options, live music, and circus skills to keep the children busy while you shop. Museum entry is free.
Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival — Sturminster Newton, Dorset (12–13 September). Held in the vale of little dairies, where Dorset cheese actually comes from, and organised by volunteers since 1999. Artisan cheesemakers, real ale and cider bars, and not much pretension. If you like cheese and dislike being sold things, this is your weekend.
Seafood and Sounds — Old Town and Quay, Poole, Dorset (12–13 September). Free, on Poole's historic quay: two days of local seafood and other Dorset produce with a good line-up of local music to eat it to. One of the more relaxed seafood festivals — you can wander, eat, sit by the water and not feel herded anywhere.
Plymouth Seafood Festival — Plymouth, Devon (12–13 September). Down on the Barbican, celebrating the catch landed at one of England's most important fishing ports. Stalls, demonstrations and the chance to eat fish about as close to the boats as it's possible to get.
Taste of Scilly — Isles of Scilly (11–20 September). Ten days across the archipelago and the most distinctive entry on this list. Sunset lobster nights, sailing trips round the islands with morning tea and cake while you watch for wildlife, intimate pop-up dinners, locally crafted tapas, picnics on St Martin's before kayaking to the Eastern Isles, and tours and tastings taking in beehives, honey and island-distilled spirits. Travel operators are offering 10% off Scillonian III and Skybus for festival dates. Time it right and you'll also catch Scilly's Low Tide Event on the 11th, which only happens twice a year.
Distilled — UHI Moray, Elgin (11–12 September). Run by the team behind the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival, and a reminder that the region's larder is worth as much attention as what goes in the glass. Speyside producers on home turf.
Scottish National Whisky Festival — Aberdeen (12 September). One day, distilleries and independent bottlers under one roof, tasting glass included. A good entry point if the big destination whisky festivals feel like too much of a commitment — no ferry, no accommodation, just an afternoon.
Big Olney Food Festival — Olney, Buckinghamshire (11–13 September). Three days of food, music and comedy in a Buckinghamshire market town, put on by a volunteer group who hand the proceeds to local charities. It's free to walk in — only the Friday comedy night is ticketed — and it has grown into one of the bigger community-run festivals in the county. Olney is best known for its Shrove Tuesday pancake race, which has been run down the high street since the
fifteenth century, so the town has form when it comes to organising itself around food. Worth the drive from Milton Keynes or Northampton area.
Hops 'n' Harvest Family Festival — Kent Life, Sandling, Maidstone (12–13 September). Two days celebrating the end of the hop harvest at Kent Life, the open-air museum on the banks of the Medway with its oast houses, vintage village and working farmyard. Craft beer and cider, live music, plenty of food, and a serious amount for children to do — which makes it the family option on a weekend otherwise weighted towards serious shopping. Ticketed.
FeastyFest — Cheam Park, Sutton, Surrey (12–13 September). Surrey's largest food festival, and for the first time in its history it runs over two days rather than one. It began in 2018 with a straightforward aim — get local families buying from small local producers, and get children interested in where food actually comes from — and attendance has more than tripled since. There's a Farmer's Market alongside the street food, bars pouring locally brewed drinks, talks and tastings, a chef's kitchen and a substantial Kidzone. The organisers also run a year-round community projects arm, which tells you something about why it exists. Ticketed.
Cranbrook Gate to Plate — Cranbrook, Devon (Sunday 13 September). The first eat:Festival ever held in Cranbrook, on and around Tillhouse Road, supported by East Devon District Council. Free to attend, dog friendly, and — this is the bit worth knowing — traders are deliberately restricted to producers from within 30 miles of the town. More on eat:Festivals below.
Third weekend: 17–21 September
Abergavenny Food Festival — Abergavenny, Monmouthshire (19–20 September). Wales's flagship, and the event most other British food festivals quietly measure themselves against. 120+ exhibitors across six venues in the town centre, masterclasses, foraging sessions, product tastings and genuinely combative debates about food policy — Abergavenny has always been more interested in arguing about food than simply selling it, and it avoids the fairground feel that creeps into the bigger touring events. Under-16s go free and there's a discount if you live in the NP7 postcode. Their own line — born here, built here, run by people who live here — tells you the ethos. Note: several listings sites have this on 12–13 September. They're wrong. It's the 19th and 20th.
Stratford-upon-Avon Food Festival — Stratford-upon-Avon town centre, Warwickshire (19–20 September). Henley Street and Bridge Street close to traffic and fill with more than a hundred traders, from local award-winners to international street food, artisan spirits, cheeses and preserves. There's a full programme of live cookery demonstrations, walkabout entertainment across both days, and free arts and crafts and face painting for children. Free to wander into, in the middle of a town worth visiting anyway, which makes it one of the easier days out in the guide. Saturday 10am–6pm, Sunday 10am–5pm.
Festival of Food and Drink — Thoresby Park, Nottinghamshire (19–20 September). The biggest in the East Midlands, with over 160 artisan traders and a 500-seat cookery theatre. John Torode and Lisa Faulkner, Dean Edwards and Claire Syrenne on the Saturday; Matt Tebbutt, Francesco Mattana and Jasmine Mitchell on the Sunday; Chris Bavin hosting across the weekend. There's a free children's cookery school, Taste & Talk sessions, live music, street food and free parking. Book ahead and you'll save on the gate price.
York Food & Drink Festival — York (18–27 September). Ten days, free to attend, spread across the whole city, and run by a not-for-profit that funds the lot from the market and bar rather than charging you at a gate. New for 2026 is a dedicated demonstration and evening events venue at the St Sampson's Centre, making room for an expanded programme of cookery demos, tastings, talks and evening events. The Food and Drink Trails return too, walking you round York's independent cafés, restaurants, bars and producers. Ten days is long enough to dip in and out.
Scottish Wild Food Festival — Tir na nOg, Drymen, Stirlingshire (19–20 September). Foraging walks, wild drinks, open-fire feasts, talks, demonstrations, a wild marketplace and a forest school for children, all in the grounds of a holistic centre just outside Drymen. Talks and activities are free with entry; the in-depth workshops are bookable separately. Not like anything else on this list — you'll come away able to identify things you'd previously walked straight past.
Devizes Food and Drink Festival — Devizes, Wiltshire (19–27 September). Nine days, run entirely by volunteers, and the most inventive programme of the month. It opens with a street market on the 19th and then spends a week doing things other festivals don't: three-course lunches aboard a narrowboat moored somewhere in town, guided tastings of Bath Soft Cheese matched with wines, meals in unusual places, visits to local producers, a foodie quiz, and food writers including Felicity Cloake and the chair of the Guild of Food Writers in conversation. The box office opened on 10 August and the popular events go quickly.
Tarland Food and Music Festival — Tarland, Aberdeenshire (17–20 September). Four days of food and live music in a village in Royal Deeside. Small, rural and about as far from a corporate food event as it's possible to get.
eat:Yeovil — Middle Street and The Triangle, Yeovil, Somerset (Saturday 19 September). Free, dog friendly, and focused entirely on local food and drink brought into the middle of the town rather than out to a field.
England's Seafood FEAST — Torquay, Paignton and Brixham, Devon (21 September – 4 October). A fortnight rather than a weekend, built around the fact that over 40 species are landed at Brixham Fish Market, one of the most important in the country. Expect tasting menus at the region's best seafood restaurants, chef demonstrations, wine pairings, seafood safaris, coastal foraging and catch-and-cook experiences — plus the legendary 7 Chefs charity dinner: seven courses over seven hours in seven Brixham restaurants. If you want boat-to-plate eating, this is the fortnight.
Last weekend: 25–27 September
Aldeburgh Food & Drink Festival — Snape Maltings, Suffolk (26–27 September). Twentieth anniversary this year. Over 130 local producers in the old maltings out on the Alde marshes, plus headline chefs, masterclasses, talks and children's cookery classes. Completely independent and not-for-profit — Pierre Koffmann has called it the one not to miss, and the setting alone justifies the drive.
World Halal Food Festival — London Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (26–27 September). Billed as the world's biggest halal food festival, with over 200 vendors filling the London Stadium for two days, alongside chef demonstrations and family entertainment. It's a genuinely different proposition to almost everything else in this guide — global street food, restaurants and producers under one roof at Olympic Park scale, and it draws crowds most food festivals can only dream of. Ticketed.
Truro Food Festival — Lemon Quay, Truro, Cornwall (23–27 September). Five days rather than the usual weekend, and free to walk into, which makes this one of the best-value entries in the guide. Lemon Quay fills with an artisan market of Cornish producers — farmers, fishermen, brewers, distillers and makers — alongside street food traders, pop-up bars pouring Cornish beer and cider, and live chef demonstrations running throughout. The festival spills out into the surrounding streets, so the whole city centre takes on the atmosphere for the best part of a week. Open 9am–5pm Wednesday and Thursday, 9am–6pm Friday and Saturday, and until 4pm on Sunday.
Thame Food Festival — Thame, Oxfordshire (26–27 September). Two days at the Thame Showground with over a hundred artisan producers, street food, and a Big Cookery Stage running demonstrations from leading chefs and bakers all weekend. It’s run as a not-for-profit community interest company, and that shows in what you get for the ticket: once you’re through the gate, the music, cookery demonstrations, interviews and circus workshops are all free. There’s a Majestic wine tasting studio, a producer tasting studio, cocktail masterclasses, a big red bus bar and axe throwing, plus children’s cooking lessons, a fun dog show and enough kids’ activities to make a proper family day of it. Adults £10, 12–16s £5, under-12s free, family ticket £25 — and parking at the showground is free. Gates at 10am, until 6pm Saturday and 5pm Sunday.
Farnham Food and Drink Festival — Farnham town centre, Surrey (Sunday 27 September, 10am–4pm). Seventeenth year, free, and run by Farnham Town Council — which is exactly why it's free. Over 100 food and drink traders fill the town centre, there's a free hoppa bus looping north and south Farnham between 10am and 4.30pm, and it's grown into one of the biggest one-day food festivals in the South East. Timed to open British Food Fortnight.
Ginger & Spice Festival — Market Drayton, Shropshire (26 September). Free, in its tenth year, and built entirely on the town's own history. Market Drayton has been making Billington's gingerbread for over 200 years, its market was founded by monks from Combermere Abbey so they could sell their produce, and the town is twinned with Pézenas in southern France thanks to Clive of India's spice-route connections. Expect a spicy artisan market, a food theatre under the historic stone Buttercross, a floating market on the towpath of the Shropshire Union Canal, a Fodder and Tipple trail, street entertainers, children's cookery and a new festival parade.
Narberth Food Festival — Town Moor, Narberth, Pembrokeshire (26–27 September). Twenty-third year, run entirely by volunteers as a not-for-profit, with up to 150 businesses taking part of which 99% are Welsh. Guest chefs, a Talk and Taste tent where producers introduce their own products, live music from local bands, a bar and activities for children. Free for under-16s and two free park-and-ride sites. It sits at the top of a high street full of award-winning independent shops and cafés, so you can make a day of the town as well as the festival.
eat:Weston — Italian Gardens, Weston-super-Mare (Saturday 26 September) and eat:Tiverton — Fore Street and Phoenix Lane, Tiverton (Sunday 27 September). Two more free one-day town-centre festivals from the same social enterprise, both bringing local producers into the middle of town.
North East Oyster Festival — Hardwick Hall Hotel, County Durham (25 September). Worth reading the small print on this one: it's a ticketed marquee lunch with a compere and live acts rather than a public festival you can wander into. Excellent if that's what you're after, disappointing if you turn up expecting stalls.
Mabon: Fire & Feast — Caldicot Castle, Monmouthshire (25–27 September). An autumn equinox feast in the grounds of a medieval castle, created by Hang Fire BBQ with Street Food Circus. Sam Evans and Shauna Guinn are also cooking at Meatopia at the start of the month, so if you miss them in London you can catch them in a Welsh castle instead. Ticketed
A word on the ones that tour
Several names on the September calendar belong to organisations running the same event in different places all year: eat:Festivals, Street Food Circus, Foodies Festival, and the Great British Food Festival, which has a September date at Margam Country Park in Port Talbot.
I usually flag these so you know what you're getting, because there's a real difference between a touring brand and a town putting on its own festival. But eat:Festivals deserve better than being lumped in with the rest. They're a small social enterprise, they've been running one-day food and drink festivals across the south-west for over 13 years, every one is free to attend, and they deliberately restrict traders to producers within 30 miles of each town. That's not a circuit, that's a model — and a good one. Foodies Festival and the Great British Food Festival are commercial touring events with chef theatres, music and a gate price. They're a decent day out on those terms; just don't go expecting a local producers' market.
Two fortnights worth knowing about
Scotland's Food & Drink Fortnight kicks off at Loch Lomond at the start of the month and runs over 200 events across the country — farmers' markets, street parties, cookery shows and tastings. If you're in Scotland in early September, there'll be something on near you.
British Food Fortnight runs from late September into October, timed to the harvest. Farnham opens on the first day of it and Market Drayton sits inside it. It began in 2001 after the foot-and-mouth crisis as a way of getting people to back British farmers again, and hundreds of schools, cafés, pubs and care homes take part every year.
Found something we've missed? Tell us — readers send us more festivals than any listings site does. Two of the best in this guide came from readers.