RichmondRound

Summer fêtes and fairs bring the borough together

The smell of grass clippings and sausages on the grill. That is how you know summer has arrived in Richmond upon Thames. Fêtes and fairs dot the calendar from now through August. Every weekend brings another chance to wander between stalls, try your luck at the tombola, and eat cake baked by someone you might nod to at the shops.

These events are more than fundraisers. They mark the rhythm of the season. School fields fill with bunting. Village greens become temporary markets. You queue for tea, catch up with neighbours, and watch children race in potato sacks.

This year, roses are at their peak. Many fêtes take place in gardens where borders blaze with colour. The combination of blooms and brass bands, strawberries and sunshine, is hard to resist.

The format barely changes. Raffle tickets, second-hand books, plants for sale. That is the point. Fêtes work because they are reliable. You know what to expect, and that is exactly what you want.

They run until September.

Which fête will you visit first this summer?

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A July day that stays with you

There are those rare July days that print themselves into memory. The sort where the heat settles early and the shade under the trees feels like a gift. You might remember one from a summer afternoon in Richmond Park, the grass burnt gold, the air thick with warmth. Or along the towpath at Petersham, where […]

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Long light, slow pace: summer evenings in the borough

The light hangs on past nine now. You walk home from the station and the day still feels unfinished, suspended. The pavements hold their warmth. Front gardens blur into soft focus as the sun drops. This is the borough at its most forgiving. People linger outside pubs along the river. Joggers pass at a gentler […]

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The strawberries are in

The strawberries have arrived at the greengrocers along the high streets. Not the woody, airfreighted ones that turn up in February. The real ones. The ones that smell like something before you bite into them. You know summer has started when the first British strawberries appear in those green cardboard punnets. They bruise if you […]

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The sound of summer: fields fill with cheering voices

The sports days have begun. Across the borough, playing fields that sat quiet through winter now hum with the particular energy of children running, parents cheering, teachers timing races with clipboards and stopwatches. You see it at Marble Hill Park, on the open stretches behind the schools in Hampton, across the green spaces in Whitton. […]

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The midsummer evening that went on forever

You know the one. Late June, when the sun refuses to set and the sky holds blue until nearly ten. The air is still warm at half past nine. You’re in a garden somewhere in Richmond, or maybe walking the towpath near Petersham, and time feels suspended. The roses are at their best now. Heavy […]

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The Bench

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