Raffles 1887
The English Season by Raffles
The heat of the English summer of 2026 has brought everyone and their fancy hat, striped blazer and champagne picnic out like never before. Social commentator CHARLOTTE METCALF, who has watched the famous English Season come and go for over 60 years, guides us through the eccentricities of the society summer.
HOW times change. Or do they? We English can be reluctant to relinquish some of our most eccentric, ancient traditions.
Any book by Jane Austen or that great chronicler of English Victorian life, Anthony Trollope, will tell you how essential it was for anybody who was anybody to be in or around London during the summer months. Otherwise you would miss out on those gatherings that provided upper crust society with its social glue. It was particularly essential for the young daughters of aristocrats, or debutantes, to be presented at court at Queen Charlotte’s Ball (originally thrown for her birthday by George III in 1780) in order to find a husband of suitable rank.
While the ball itself has migrated to a private ducal home elsewhere and the Season’s events are welcoming to all now, there are still ways of choosing and attending which places to be seen at which will indicate your wealth and status.
The Season comprises numerous lavish parties and gatherings that continue to uphold those traditions that we’re famous for worldwide. Some of these will give ladies the perfect excuse to invest in a hat made by Philip Treacy (pictured at Royal Ascot with Demi Moore), while gentlemen will be racing to Pall Mall to visit Favourbrook, purveyors of formalwear for special occasions and known for its signature embroidered waistcoats.
Here are ten of the best that will take you, suitably attired, through the Season and ensure that you have plenty to talk about at winter dinner parties. Until it all starts up again.
MAY
The Chelsea Flower Show, Royal Hospital, Chelsea
We are a nation of gardeners and, annually, our finest horticulturalists gather to create the most beautiful, original landscapes to compete for one of the coveted Gold Medals or Best in Show awards. Furniture designers, parasol makers, outdoor kitchen or tree house manufacturers, sculptors and many more present and sell their wares while delighted ticket holders roam the 20-acre site, often armed with a glass of Pimm's from one of the many stalls. It is such a harbinger of spring that, for the past few years, the whole of Chelsea, particularly around Sloane Square and Pimlico Road, has decked itself out with flowers as ‘Chelsea in Bloom’ (pictured) for the week of the show.
JUNE
Fourth of June, Eton College, Eton
Founded in 1440, Eton needs little or no introduction as the most famous private (although being weirdly English, we say ‘public’) school in the world. In discombobulating English fashion, The Fourth of June usually takes place around the 12th of June, when 15,000 or so people gather to picnic with the boys on Agar’s Plough. This is one of the summer’s best multi-generational parties so befriend anyone with a son, grandson or nephew at the school and secure an invitation. There are speeches, recitations, cricket matches and more, including the Procession of Boats (pictured in Illustrated London News, 1870) with its historic Boating Song. Boys dressed in 18th-century midshipmen uniforms and straw boaters festooned with fresh flowers row wooden clinkers along the Thames and at one point they stop and stand up with their oars – very precariously – then face Windsor Castle to cheer the King, the school and the memory of King George III (whose birthday was on 4 June). The English love an underdog, so if a boy topples in, all the better.
Cartier Queen’s Cup Polo Final, Guards Polo Club, Windsor
Make friends with a Guards Polo Club member to be sure of gaining entry to this tournament’s final and see the world of polo at its most glamorous. I once attended British Polo Day in Jodhpur and discovered that polo is a regular networking opportunity for the global elite. British Polo Day’s founder, Ed Olver, told me that the horse plays a powerful role in international diplomacy, because it represents an international language and a bridging point – though as anyone’s who’s watched the late Jilly Cooper’s Rivals knows, you refer to the horses as ‘ponies’.
Royal Ascot, Ascot Racecourse
Anybody who has seen the film My Fair Lady will recall the scene at Ascot, with costumes by Cecil Beaton, when Professor Higgins, played by Rex Harrison, is hoping to pass off Eliza Doolittle, played by Audrey Hepburn, as a lady. It’s an indication of Ascot’s long-lived reputation as the racing event of the year – particularly if you can secure an invitation into the Royal Enclosure. Here dress codes are strict – top hats and morning suits for gentlemen and demure dresses for ladies. And no ordinary hats – substantial hats must be worn and flimsy fascinators are prohibited unless you are under 17. The hat and people-watching is so absorbing it might on occasion even eclipse the races.
Serpentine Summer Party, Kensington Gardens, London
This party, by invitation or eye-wateringly expensive ticket (well, it is a fund-raiser to keep the gallery open to all), continues to be one of London’s most glitzy annual events. It takes place in the Pavilion, which is created anew annually. For summer 2026 it was designed by the Mexico City-based LANZA atelier, celebrating Latin American creativity and culture. Salma Hayek Pinault, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu co-hosted with Michael R. Bloomberg, CEO Bettina Korek and artistic director Hans Ulrich Orbrist. Expect to mingle with everyone from famous artists and fashion designers to Hollywood stars and royalty.
JUNE-AUGUST
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Piccadilly, London
For more than 250 years the annual exhibition has been led by artists who choose work to hang in the gallery for sale to the public. The committee of artists spends eight days hanging the works and is traditionally offered beef tea, brewed from a secret recipe and rumoured to contain sherry. Prior to opening is Varnishing Day, when artists gather in the courtyard and form a procession down Piccadilly, led by a steel band before attending a blessing in St James’s Church opposite. But if you miss Varnishing Day, don’t fail to see the show as it will be the talk of the town throughout the summer.
JUNE-JULY
Wimbledon Championships, All England Club, Wimbledon
There is simply no other sports tournament in the world that encompasses an English summer like Wimbledon does, with its familiar purple and green colour scheme, its emerald green courts, players in whites, unreliable weather and mountains of strawberries and cream. Aim for a debenture ticket for access to an all-day seat on Centre Court for the Finals with a clear view of the Royal Box. Failing that, you can always sit on the grass with a Pimm's amongst the happy crowds on Henman Hill and watch the nail-biting action on the gigantic screen.
Henley Royal Regatta, Henley-on-Thames
Imagine a scene out of Terence Rattigan or P G Wodehouse with gentlemen in striped blazers and straw boaters and ladies in summer frocks in one of England’s loveliest riverside towns. Yet again, your status depends on where you are watching the rowing races from. Members and their guests have access to the Stewards’ Enclosure on the Berkshire side of the river, boasting two grandstands with views of the Finish Line and out over Henley and its lovely church spire.
JULY
Goodwood Festival of Speed, Goodwood Estate, West Sussex
Billed as the most intoxicating event of the season, the heady mix of fast cars and motorsport stars, set against the stunning backdrop of the Duke of Richmond’s stately home, makes this festival a seasonal must. 2026 is extra special as Goodwood venerates and celebrates the 50th anniversary of James Hunt and Niki Lauda’s monumental Formula 1 Championship battle and the saga between Ford and Ferrari that culminated at the 1966 Le Mans 24 hours. Also Goodwood has just created a new FOS Fan Zone, allowing insider access to the action and the stars.
AUGUST
Glyndebourne Opera, East Sussex
As the summer progresses, visitors to London will see gentlemen in black tie and ladies in flowing dresses packing their cars with picnic hampers and bottles of champagne in the middle of the afternoon. This is to allow enough time to drive to Sussex and enjoy a couple of hours’ dining al fresco (pictured in 1959) in some of England’s loveliest landscape prior to enjoying a world-class opera. There are several other open-air opera festivals including Garsington, The Grange, Longborough and Opera Holland Park, but Glyndebourne, started and continued by the Christie family, remains the most legendary. Whatever you do, make sure you don’t miss out on at least one of them.
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