Chichester's free lantern parade leaves the Council House at 4pm on Saturday 31 October, then a free Spooky Disco. Plus pumpkin picking and farm trails.

Chichester’s big free Halloween event this year is the city council’s lantern parade on Saturday 31 October, leaving the Council House on North Street at 4pm, followed by a free Spooky Disco in the Guildhall in Priory Park. Around it: two pick-your-own pumpkin farms on the edge of the city, a costumed day at the Weald and Downland Living Museum and a children’s party in Fishbourne. Every detail below is from the organiser’s own page, checked on 4 October.

The quick answer

  • Free and in the city centre: face painting from 2pm, the lantern parade at 4pm and the Spooky Disco 4.30pm to 6.30pm (booking essential), all on Saturday 31 October, run by Chichester City Council for its 800th anniversary.
  • Pumpkin picking: Dell Quay PYO reopens for pumpkins from Saturday 17 October, free entry; Northlands Farm runs a ticketed Halloween event 24 October to 1 November.
  • Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, the day after West Sussex half term ends. Fontwell Park’s fireworks are the same night.

The free lantern parade and Spooky Disco

All from the city council’s half term announcement of 30 September. The parade draws on an old Chichester custom: the Mayor once walked the streets behind a round lantern, now known as the Municipal Moon.

  • Lantern workshops, Thursday 29 October: sessions at 10.30am, 12.30pm and 2pm in the Assembly Room at the Council House. Free; booking recommended, with a few walk-in places if a session is full. Children make a lantern to carry on Saturday.
  • Face painting, Saturday 31 October, 2pm to 4pm: free, under the Council House portico, first come first served.
  • Lantern parade, 4pm: gather outside the Council House from 3.50pm. Children’s wristbands are handed out at the portico from 3.30pm. The parade goes to the Market Cross, where the Mayor reads a proclamation for the council’s 800th anniversary and the Reverend Canon David Nason blesses the city, then along East Street to the Guildhall in Priory Park, arriving about 4.30pm. You do not need to have gone to a workshop: the council will have ready-made lanterns on the day.
  • Spooky Disco, 4.30pm to 6.30pm, the Guildhall: free but booking is essential and places are limited. A DJ, light refreshments, and costume prizes judged by the Mayor in four groups: under 7s, 7 to 13, over 13s, and groups and families.
  • Food: Fenwicks Café in Priory Park serves pizza and hot drinks until 5.30pm, with an offer for families at the event.

The workshops and disco are booked through the council’s Ticket Tailor page, linked from the announcement. The council has not published any road closure for the parade.

Pick your own pumpkins at Dell Quay

Dell Quay PYO, at Crouchers Farm on Birdham Road, Apuldram (PO20 7EQ), says it will be “open again from the 17th October for PYO Pumpkins”. The farm’s own page says entry is free, parking is free with no need to book, and you pay only for what you pick, by card or cash. There is a café, a play area and accessible toilets; no dogs except guide dogs.

It is about a mile south of the city on the road to the Witterings, with a pavement all the way from the centre and Stagecoach routes 52 and 53 stopping close by. The farm has not published daily opening hours or a closing date for the pumpkin season, so check its Instagram before a long trip.

Northlands Farm Halloween

Northlands Farm (PO19 3PY) runs “Family Frights and Pumpkin Delights” from Saturday 24 October to Sunday 1 November. Its booking page lists two entry sessions a day, from 10am and 11am.

  • Gold child ticket (ages 2 to 14), £19.55: includes the pumpkin patch with one pumpkin each, and the trick or treat trail with sweets.
  • Adult admission with parking, £14.55; adult carer £11.75. Under-twos free.
  • What’s on: the spooky woodland walk, a candy treasure trail, a “pumpkin cemetery”, pumpkin carving and children’s Halloween art, marshmallow toasting, the farm animals in the “spooky stables”, and the farm’s 50 metre zipline.

Prices are as listed on the ticket page on 4 October. Tickets are online only and non-refundable, and the farm says the event goes ahead in rain or shine: it asks visitors to bring wellies, warm clothes and their own bags or trolleys for pumpkins. Numbers are capped by car parking space.

All Hallow’s Eve, Weald and Downland

The Weald and Downland Living Museum at Singleton holds its Halloween day on Saturday 31 October, 10am to 4pm. Costumes are encouraged. There are mystics in the “haunted woodland” making spell jars, a 16th-century “wise woman” in her cottage, a plague potion workshop, and Hambrook Barn turned into “Haunted Hambrook” with an eyeball and spoon race, besom broomstick racing and poisoned apple bobbing. The Plagues and Potions trail runs every day of half term too.

The event’s booking link goes to the museum’s timed daily admission tickets, listed on 4 October at £16.90 an adult, £8.80 a child aged 5 to 17, under-5s free (but they still need a ticket), and £46 for two adults and up to three children. Parking is free.

Children’s Halloween Party, Fishbourne

The Fishbourne Centre, 46 Blackboy Lane, holds a children’s Halloween party on Saturday 31 October, 3.30pm to 5.30pm: a disco, party games and a prize for the best costume. £7.50 for ages 2 to 11, £2.50 for under-2s, tickets only. On 4 October the booking page showed 41 places left at £7.50.

After dark: the Cathedral and fireworks

  • Chichester Light Experience, Chichester Cathedral, 23 to 31 October: Luxmuralis’s Illuminating Art projections and sound, with timed evening entry. Adult £13, child £8, students £11, family (two adults, two children) £36, from the Cathedral’s event page. Halloween night is its last.
  • Fontwell Park fireworks, Saturday 31 October: ticketed, display at 7.30pm. Details, and West Dean’s and Petworth’s displays the following week, on our Bonfire Night page.

Getting there and parking

There are no trains west of Chichester from 26 to 30 October while Network Rail resignals Havant, so Fishbourne station has no trains that week. National Rail lists no Southern changes for Saturday 31 October itself. Details in our story on the closure. For the parade, the nearest council car parks are covered in our parking in Chichester page, and current roadworks, including the Stockbridge Road closure from 10 October, are on the roadworks page.

For everything else that week, see October half term in Chichester and what’s on in Chichester this month.