Somerset keeps a calendar older than most of its buildings. Long before anyone printed a diary, people here marked the year by the orchard, the harvest and the fire, and much of that rhythm survives — repackaged as a weekend out with wellies, a hip flask and a torch. What follows is a rough guide to the county's recurring heritage events: where they came from, when they usually fall, and how to catch them without turning up a week late.

Two things are worth knowing before you start planning. First, very few of these events are run by anyone central: they are put on by parishes, pubs, carnival clubs and orchard owners, which is why the details change and why the local noticeboard still beats the internet. Second, almost every date below is a traditional one rather than a fixed one, so the honest answer to "when is it this year?" is usually "the same as always — roughly".

Somerset Day: the county's own birthday

Somerset Day is fixed to 11 May, with celebrations often stretching into the nearest weekend. The date nods to 878, when Alfred the Great, driven into the marshes of the Levels, gathered the Somerset men around Athelney before the fighting that turned the tide against the Danes. It is a founding story rather than a documented diary entry, which is exactly why it works: it gives a county with no obvious patron saint a day of its own. The modern observance is much newer, first marked in 2015.

What actually happens? Less a single festival than a hundred small ones. Pubs put Somerset cider and cheese on the board, museums and heritage sites lay on talks or reduced entry, schools run local history projects, and parish groups lead walks to a church tower, a hill fort or a stretch of the Levels.

How Somerset Day usually looks

• Free or cut-price entry at several museums and heritage sites across the county.
• Talks, walks and open days themed around Alfred, Athelney and the Levels.
• Cider, cheese and apple cake in pubs that would be selling them anyway, only with more flag-waving.
• Local history projects in schools, often timed to finish that week.
• Parish churches ringing bells, and the county flag run up poles that see it once a year.

If you want to join in: check your town or parish council page in the last week of April, keep an eye on church and village hall noticeboards, and look for the county flag flying on the day itself.

Winter: wassailing the apple trees

The word comes from the old greeting waes hael — be in good health — and the ceremony that carries it is a January affair, traditionally held on Twelfth Night, 5 January, or on Old Twelfth Night, 17 January, for those who never quite accepted the change of calendar. Either way the point is the same: to wake the orchard, scare off the bad spirits and ask the trees for a decent crop.

The ritual is short, loud and faintly ridiculous, which is part of its charm. Cider-soaked toast is placed in the fork of the oldest tree, a shotgun is fired through the branches, and the assembled company beats pots, pans and drums to make as much noise as possible. Then everyone sings:

Old apple tree, we wassail thee,
And hoping thou wilt bear;
For the Lord doth know where we shall be
Till apples come another year.

Orchards at Carhampton, Curry Rivel, West Bradley and a scattering of other parishes keep the custom going, usually with a lantern-lit procession, a bonfire and a hot drink that is not always cider but often is. Carhampton's, held near Dunster on Old Twelfth Night, is among the best known and has been running in its modern form for decades.

Practical note: these are working orchards and village greens, not ticketed attractions. Turn up, stand at the edge, join the singing if you like, and expect to be asked for a small donation towards the cider.

Spring: hobby horses and a thorn that flowers twice

May Day brings the Minehead Hobby Horse out onto the streets — a boat-shaped frame carried by a man hidden beneath it, escorted by attendants in white with red sashes, calling at houses to collect money. The tradition is at least several centuries old and resists explanation: the horse goes out on 1 May, unless the weather is bad, in which case the "Sailor's Horse" takes to the streets a day earlier.

Over at Glastonbury, the famous thorn is said to flower at Christmas and again around Easter — a piece of living folklore tied to the legend of Joseph of Arimathea planting his staff on Wearyall Hill. A cutting is still sent to the monarch each Christmas. Spring is also when the county's gardens, abbeys and priories reopen for the season, and when the first of the agricultural shows appears on the horizon.

Summer: the show circuit and a very old story

Summer in Somerset is a long procession of marquees. The Royal Bath and West Show at Shepton Mallet, generally late May or early June, is the big one — livestock, cider, cheese, heavy horses and a great deal of standing in a field admiring a tractor. Smaller shows follow through July and August across the county, from Yeovil to Mid Somerset, each with its own produce tent, dog show and slightly unpredictable weather.

This is also the season for heritage in the literal sense: abbey ruins open for guided tours, church towers and their towers' bells get an airing, and Lammas on 1 August marks the old first cut of the wheat — a harvest festival before harvest festivals had a name.

Autumn: punkies, squibs and harvest home

October belongs to Punkie Night, kept at Hinton St George on the last Thursday before Halloween. Children carry punkies — hollowed-out mangolds or swedes with candles inside — and sing at doorsteps:

It's Punkie Night tonight, it's Punkie Night tonight,
Give us a candle, give us a light,
It's Punkie Night tonight.

Then comes November and the carnival season, which is arguably the loudest thing in the county's year. Bridgwater's illuminated procession, traditionally the first Friday of November, dates back to the Gunpowder Plot and has grown into a parade of enormous lit carts, followed by the squibbing: a line of squibbers holding firework-laden poles aloft in the town centre. Burnham-on-Sea, Weston-super-Mare, Glastonbury, Wells and North Petherton follow on subsequent evenings, each with its own character.

Harvest Home and Michaelmas on 29 September close the farming year, traditionally the time of hiring fairs, goose dinners and settling accounts. Christmas then brings the candlelit streets of Dunster, where shop lights go out and the main road is lit by candle lanterns alone.

The Somerset year at a glance

1. January: wassailing, Twelfth Night or Old Twelfth Night.
2. February: snowdrop walks and the quieter end of the heritage calendar.
3. March–April: sites reopen, Glastonbury thorn, Easter events.
4. May: Minehead Hobby Horse, Somerset Day on 11 May, early shows.
5. June–August: agricultural shows, Lammas, abbey and garden openings.
6. September: Michaelmas, harvest suppers, art weeks.
7. October: Punkie Night at Hinton St George.
8. November: the carnival circuit, starting at Bridgwater.
9. December: Dunster by Candlelight, Christmas markets, church services.

How to catch an event without turning up a week late

• Check twice. A traditional date and a published date are not always the same. Organisers move things to the nearest Saturday more often than any folklorist would like.
• Look local, not national. Parish councils, village halls, carnival clubs and pubs post details weeks before any listings site catches up.
• Go early. Candlelit streets, carnival routes and orchard car parks fill fast. Bridgwater on carnival night is not the place for a casual arrival at eight o'clock.
• Bring cash. Collections, raffles and cider are usually small-change affairs.
• Dress for the Levels. Evenings are damp, roads flood, and a torch is not optional in a January orchard.
• Be a good guest. These are living customs, not performances. Watch, join in when invited, and leave the drone at home.

What holds all of this together is not nostalgia but continuity. A wassail is still a practical request for apples; a carnival is still a village showing off to its neighbours; Somerset Day is still a county deciding it exists. Turn up to any of them and you are not watching history — you are part of next year's version of it.

Photo: mana2014 / Pixabay