Buckingham's free bonfire is 6pm to 8pm on Saturday 31 October. Brill's is Saturday 7 November, Thomley's quiet display 24 October, Aylesbury's 22 November.
The biggest free bonfire night display in the district now has a date. Buckingham Bonfire and Fireworks is on Saturday 31 October 2026 at Bourton Park Paddock. It runs from 6pm to 8pm, with a torch-lit parade, a bonfire and fireworks. Buckingham is about 15 miles north-west of Aylesbury.
Updated 14 October: two more displays have dates. Brill Scouts’ fireworks night is on Saturday 7 November, and Thomley at Worminghall runs a reduced-sound display on Saturday 24 October. Details below.
Updated 6 October: Buckingham Town Council has published the full programme. The event runs 6pm to 8pm, adds a torch-lit parade and live music, bans personal fireworks and sparklers, and asks drivers to use Cornwalls Meadow car park.
Updated 30 September: Buckingham Town Council has listed its 2026 bonfire and fireworks for Saturday 31 October. No other display in the Aylesbury area has published a 2026 date yet.
Aylesbury town’s own fireworks are on 22 November, at the end of the Christmas lights switch-on. Green Ridge’s school display has still not published a date, and this page will be updated if it does.
The one confirmed display: 22 November, not 5 November
Aylesbury town’s fireworks are not a bonfire night thing. They are the finale of Christmas on the Cobbles, the Christmas lights switch-on, which Aylesbury Town Council has confirmed for Sunday 22 November 2026, 12pm to 6pm in the town centre. The illuminated parade starts at 5pm, the lights go on at the end of it, and the fireworks follow. Free.
Full detail on our Christmas lights switch-on page.
Aylesbury Town Council lists no bonfire or fireworks event at all in its events calendar for early November 2026. What it has for that fortnight is a play at Queens Park Arts Centre, an artisan craft fair and a Nature Tots session.
Buckingham: Saturday 31 October, Bourton Park
Buckingham Bonfire and Fireworks at Bourton Park Paddock is the largest free display in this district. Buckingham Town Council’s page for it describes a free event with hot food and drink near the play areas, music, a display by Titanium Fireworks, and a bonfire built from pallets donated by local building firms. The bonfire is lit after the fireworks so its light does not wash out the display, and the council says it is checked for hedgehogs before it goes up.
Its stated reason for running it is worth quoting, because it explains why it is free: a public display “reduces the number of individual fireworks displays across town, cutting down on noise pollution”.
The council published the full 2026 programme on 5 October in a second listing. Its details:
- Saturday 31 October, Bourton Park Paddock, Buckingham
- runs 6pm to 8pm; the council’s earlier listing puts the fireworks at 7pm
- a torch-lit parade, the bonfire, the fireworks and live music from DJ Dan Blaze
- food and drink from J&L Snacks, Silverstone Brewery and Crazy Bird, and glow products from Mr Glow
- free
- personal fireworks and sparklers are banned on site, and stewards’ instructions apply
Neither listing mentions road closures. On 5 September the date was missing from the calendar, and we said so here. It went up later in the month.
For reference, the recent dates were Saturday 6 November 2021 (gates 6pm, fireworks 7pm) and Saturday 1 November 2025, both from the council’s own listings. In 2019 the event was cancelled. This year it is again the Saturday before bonfire night.
Bonfire night 2026 falls on a Thursday
5 November 2026 is a Thursday. That matters for planning: community displays almost always move to the nearest Saturday, which gives you Saturday 31 October and Saturday 7 November as the two likely dates for anything local. Buckingham has taken 31 October and Brill 7 November.
The village and community displays
Brill: Saturday 7 November, from the windmill
Brill is about 11 miles west of Aylesbury. Brill Scouts are running this year’s fireworks evening on Saturday 7 November, according to the 2026 listing:
- a lantern parade from Brill Windmill at 6pm
- the fireworks evening from 7pm, with music, games stalls and sparkler activities
- food stalls, and a bar run by the Sports and Social
- tickets £7.50 a person or £25 for a family of four; under-fives free
- tickets from Brill Stores, and the organisers advise buying early
That is a change from recent years, when the lantern parade set off from The Pheasant to the playing fields. The 2025 event was on 1 November.
Thomley, Worminghall: Saturday 24 October, reduced sound
Thomley, the disability charity on Menmarsh Road, Worminghall (about 13 miles west of Aylesbury), runs a reduced-sound fireworks display on Saturday 24 October, 5pm to 8pm. The fireworks are chosen to make less noise than a normal display, which suits children and adults who find loud bangs hard. There is a fire-breathing act, a bar, hot drinks and hot food. Tickets are booked through Thomley; the price was not shown on the listing we could read, and the charity is on 01844 338380. The date and times come from Thomley’s event listing on Thame Hub, because the charity’s own event page loads its details by script.
Still no date
- Green Ridge Primary Academy PTA, Berryfields. The school’s own PTA page lists a Fireworks Night among the events it runs each year, alongside the summer fete and festive fun. It is a ticketed fundraiser rather than a free display. No 2026 date is published on the school site.
Aylesbury Rugby Club at Ostlers Field, Weston Turville has run a family fireworks evening in the past, but its own listing for it is a members only event, so it is not a public display and should not be planned around.
What to do if you want a display this year
- Keep checking through October. Buckingham, Brill and Thomley have published; Green Ridge’s PTA had still not posted a 2026 date on 14 October.
- For Buckingham, use the 2026 event listing or the town council’s news page, not its annual events page. The annual events page has not been updated since April 2023 and carries no dates at all.
- Book early for the ticketed ones. Brill sells through Brill Stores, Thomley through its own site, and school PTA displays are small-capacity and sell out.
- Do not rely on the aggregator sites. Several national fireworks directories were still serving 2025 dates under a 2026 heading when we checked, including displays that had already happened.
Getting there and parking
Bourton Park in Buckingham has no dedicated event car park. The town council asks people to walk if they can; drivers should use Cornwalls Meadow car park and follow the marked route through the park to the paddock. It warns that parking close to the site is “extremely limited”. For Aylesbury town centre on 22 November, Market Square and Kingsbury are closed to traffic and the nearest car parks are Exchange Street, Waterside North and the Friars Square multi-storey.
Tariffs and Blue Badge detail are on our Aylesbury parking page, and anything live on the roads in is on the roadworks and travel page.
Sources
- Aylesbury Town Council, council and local events calendar and the Christmas on the Cobbles 2026 listing
- Buckingham Town Council, Spectacular Bonfire and Fireworks 2026 programme, Bonfire and Fireworks 2026 listing, Bonfire and Fireworks, its 2021 event listing and its live events calendar
- Green Ridge Primary Academy, PTA page
- Thame Hub, Brill Fireworks 2026 listing, Brill Fireworks 2025 and 2024 listings, and the Thomley reduced-sound display listing
- Thomley, Reduced Sound Fireworks Display
- Aylesbury RFC, Family Fireworks Evening listing (members only)
All checked on 5 September 2026. The Buckingham listing, the Aylesbury Town Council calendar, the Green Ridge PTA page and the Brill listings were re-checked on 30 September 2026, and again on 6 October 2026. Brill, Thomley and Green Ridge were checked again on 14 October 2026.
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