A Thirteenth-Century Cumbrian Fair Crowns a World Champion for Pulling a Face Through a Horse Collar and It Is on in Three Weeks
Egremont Crab Fair runs on the third Saturday of September. Gurning starts at six in the evening, and the rest of the day is Cumberland wrestling, pole climbing and pipe smoking.
The Egremont Crab Fair in Cumbria is held on the third Saturday of September and finishes with the World Gurning Championships, in which competitors pull the most hideous face they can through a braffin, a horse collar. Fair events start at about 10am. Gurning starts at 6pm.
The day
| Event | Note |
|---|---|
| World Gurning Championship | 6pm onwards, Market Hall |
| Cumberland wrestling | Traditional Lakeland style |
| Boundary riding | Equestrian |
| Pole climbing | Showfield |
| Pipe smoking, dialect singing, hunting horn | Minor competitions |
Organisers advise wellies for the showfield and arriving early for a seat at the gurning.
It is not about crabs
The fair is named for crab apples, which are in season in September. Modern organisers hand out ordinary eating apples instead, the crab apple being famously not worth eating.
Continuity is the record here
The fair dates to the thirteenth century, and the only years it has not been held were during the two world wars. Sporting bodies routinely describe themselves as historic on the strength of a hundred years and a rebrand. A Cumbrian market fair with an unbroken run of roughly seven and a half centuries, interrupted twice, is a different order of claim.
The gurning itself is the part that travels. A world championship for facial contortion through a horse collar is exactly the kind of event that circulates internationally every September and then vanishes for a year, and the rest of the fair, which is the actual institution, goes unmentioned.
Where it sits on Playdash
Playdash does not price gurning. This is editorial coverage of the novelty competitive calendar rather than a market preview.
Date rule, timings, events, history and the braffin as published in calendar listings for the Egremont Crab Fair. The 2026 date follows the stated third-Saturday-of-September rule rather than a published 2026 announcement, and recent champions were not confirmed in the source consulted. Correct at the time of writing on 30 August 2026.