Egremont Crab Fair & World Gurning Championship

 

Saturday 19 September. The fair is 759 years old, and traditions include the apple-cart parade, riding the boundary, greasy-pole climbing, horn blowing, old hunting songs, Cumberland & Westmorland wrestling and the World Gurning Championships. 

 

Gravesend & Rochester Ploughing Match

 

 Kent, Saturday 19 September. The agricultural association dates to 1834, and this year's event includes conventional, vintage, horse and steam ploughing, alongside produce, cookery, crafts, livestock and rural displays. 
 

Collingham Show & Ploughing Match 

 

Nottinghamshire, Saturday 19 September.  173rd Collingham Show. It includes livestock, ploughing, the traditional hedge-laying craft of plashing, vintage tractors and vehicles, home-grown produce and agricultural competitions.

 

Jane Austen Festival 

 

Bath, until Sunday 20 September. This has become the world's largest and longest-running Jane Austen festival, with Regency dress, walks, balls, performances and talks throughout Georgian Bath. 
Heritage Open Days — across England, until Sunday 20 September. This is actually enormous: England's national festival of history and culture, with normally closed historic buildings, workshops, tours and sites opening to the public. English Heritage has participating places from Cornwall to Northumberland. This week includes medieval castles, abbeys, Roman sites, historic factories and industrial heritage.
 

Severn Valley Railway Autumn Steam Gala

 

Shropshire/Worcestershire, 17–20 September. Four days devoted to working steam, with heritage locomotives running between Kidderminster and Bridgnorth. This isn't an ancient annual custom, but visually and editorially it fits the English engineering / making / preservation side of the story extremely well.
 

Harrogate Autumn Flower Show at Newby Hall 

 

North Yorkshire, 18–20 September. A major English horticultural show held in the grounds of Newby Hall, with nurseries, fruit and vegetable competitions and more than 5,000 autumn blooms. Again, more horticultural tradition than ancient custom, but beautifully aligned with seasonality, growing and the English country calendar.