Cornwall is a festival county like few others. Cut off by the Tamar and proud of its Celtic roots, it keeps customs you will find nowhere else in England, and backs them with a coast made for music, surf and seafood.
The Celtic calendar
Cornwall's oldest festivals follow the turning of the year. St Piran's Day in March is the county's national day, the Padstow 'Obby 'Oss welcomes May, and Helston Flora Day dances the Furry Dance through the town on the eighth. Midsummer brings Golowan and Mazey Day in Penzance, and the solstice brings its fiery midwinter twin, Montol.
Music on the coast
The summer belongs to the sea. Boardmasters pairs a huge line-up at Watergate Bay with surfing at Fistral, the Eden Sessions stage major artists inside the Eden Project, and Tunes in the Dunes plays right on Perranporth Beach. Folk runs just as deep, from the Cornwall Folk Festival to the sea shanties of Falmouth and Port Isaac.
Food, drink and the sea
Cornwall's food festivals are built around its harbours and its most famous export. Cornish Pasty Week ends with the World Pasty Championships at Heligan, the Falmouth Oyster Festival opens the native oyster season under sail, and the Newlyn Fish Festival celebrates one of the UK's biggest fishing ports.
Arts, words and Scilly
The arts thread through the county too, from the Fowey Festival in du Maurier country to the fortnight-long St Ives September Festival and the Cornwall Film Festival. Out on the Isles of Scilly, the World Pilot Gig Championships draw crews from across the world each May.