Devon's Christmas, plotted
Markets in the cathedral close, the night the lights go on, a grotto that earns the queue — the festive season across Devon, mapped before it sells out.
27 September 2026
Devon does Christmas in layers. It starts quietly with makers' markets in November, tips over on the night the town lights come on, and doesn't really stop until the carols ring round the cathedral in December. Book the set-pieces early — the good ones are gone by Advent. Here's how the season plots out.
The markets
Exeter Cathedral's Christmas market is the county's set-piece: wooden chalets on the green, in the shadow of the west front. Go on a weekday evening if you can, when you can actually move.
Buckfast Abbey runs its own, later in the month, in a setting no shopping centre will ever touch.
The night the lights go on
Plymouth switches on its city-centre lights in mid-November — the unofficial start of everyone's season, and a good excuse to be in town after dark.
Carols and big nights
G4 bring their Christmas show to Exeter Cathedral — carols in the acoustic they were written for.
For something brassier, Tony Hadley's Christmas Big Band Tour lands at Plymouth Pavilions.
For the kids
Pennywell Farm turns festive with a grotto that — unlike most — earns the queue.
And Babbacombe Model Village lights up its miniature Devon for Christmas: small, in every good sense.
December fills in fast, so we'll keep this page honest as more lands. Want the festive picks — markets, carols, grottoes — matched to your patch of Devon? The weekly email does exactly that.