Harrogate's Remembrance Sunday starts at 10.30am on 8 November at the War Memorial, with a town centre parade. Groups laying a wreath must register first.

Remembrance Sunday 2026 is Sunday 8 November. Armistice Day, the 11th hour of the 11th day, falls on the Wednesday after, 11 November.

The date is not in doubt anywhere in the district. Ripon City Council’s Events Committee fixed it in writing back in January, minuting “Remembrance Sunday, Date set to Sunday 8th November 2026” (Events Committee minutes, 12 January 2026).

Updated 29 September: Harrogate Town Council has published its 2026 event. Proceedings start at 10.30am at the Harrogate War Memorial, with a parade through the town centre before the Act of Remembrance.

Ripon and Knaresborough have not published their 2026 timings yet. Here is exactly where each of the three main towns has got to, checked on 29 September.

Harrogate: from 10.30am at the War Memorial

Harrogate Town Council’s events page lists Remembrance Sunday 2026 on Sunday 8 November, from 10.30am, at the Harrogate War Memorial. The council says the parade will make its way through the town centre before the Act of Remembrance, which includes the two-minute silence and the wreath-laying (Harrogate Town Council).

If you represent a community group and want to lay a wreath, you must register in advance using the form on that page. The council allows one wreath per organisation, and political party wreaths are not included in the civic ceremony.

The council has not published the parade route, the order of the day after the silence or any road closures. It voted the money and the authority for the event over the summer.

At its Events, Culture and Heritage Committee on 29 July 2026, the committee noted “the separate budget allocation of £10,000 for this event” and resolved that “delegated authority be given to the Event and Culture Lead to proceed with arrangements” (draft minutes, 29 July 2026).

The same meeting changed how the event is handled from now on. It resolved that “in future years, Remembrance Sunday would be considered once per year at the first committee meeting following the event, to enable a debrief and to provide advance authority to proceed with arrangements for the following year”.

The committee met again on 26 August. Remembrance Sunday appears on that agenda only as item E18 (g), one line in a list of verbal updates, with no report attached (agenda and papers, 26 August 2026). The 10.30am start then appeared on the council’s events page. No road closure notice for the parade had been published on the Public Notice Portal as at 29 September.

What the day looked like in 2025

The council’s own report of the 2025 commemorations is the most reliable guide to the shape of the day (Harrogate Town Council, 10 November 2025):

  • The morning began with the parade and service of remembrance at the Harrogate War Memorial, the cenotaph in Prospect Square.
  • Trainees from the Harrogate Army Foundation College led the parade through the town centre after the wreath-laying, and the civic party took the salute.
  • Music came from the Harrogate Band and the Tewit Well Youth Band.
  • A Remembrance Service followed at St Peter’s Church.
  • Harrogate Brigantes Rotary Club held a further act of remembrance at the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery at Stonefall.
  • There was a third ceremony, the Starbeck Community Remembrance Service.
  • The Mayor laid wreaths at all three sites. The Mayor of the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, David Skaith, and the Deputy Lieutenant of North Yorkshire, Simon Mackaness, joined the civic party.

For the clock times, the fullest published set is from the local radio station Your Harrogate, on 6 November 2025: the two-minute silence at 11am, a short parade from the cenotaph at 10.45am, the Stonefall service at 12.30pm and Starbeck at 3pm (Your Harrogate, 6 November 2025). Those are last year’s times. This year the council gives a 10.30am start and has not yet published the rest of the day’s timings.

Ripon: date fixed, £4,500 in the budget

Ripon City Council runs its own civic calendar, and it set Remembrance Sunday for 8 November 2026 in January alongside the rest of the year. The council’s budget monitoring in the papers for its 7 September 2026 meeting shows a Remembrance Sunday line of £4,500 for 2026/27, fully committed (council papers, 7 September 2026).

In 2025 the Ripon pattern was an Act of Commemoration in Spa Gardens at 10.50am, then the Remembrance Day Service in the cathedral at 11.45am (Your Harrogate, 6 November 2025). Ripon City Council has not published 2026 timings.

There is one confirmed 2026 Ripon fixture in the diary. A Concert of Remembrance is on at Ripon Cathedral on Thursday 5 November, doors 6.45pm, concert 7.15pm, tickets £16.56, put on with the Ripon Community Poppy Project and performed by East Cleveland Brass, the soprano Charlotte Potter, Mark Sidwell on cornet and the Nidderdale organist Dr Richard Martin. The cathedral describes it as part of the annual November commemorations that include the knitted poppy displays through the building (Ripon Cathedral).

One trap: the cathedral’s separate “Act of Remembrance” page is still dated 11 November 2024 and carries an “Expired!” label, so the 10.45am to 11.15am time on it is two years old.

Knaresborough: expect road closures from mid-morning

Knaresborough is the town in the district where Remembrance Sunday actually shuts roads. In 2025 the parade set off at 10.20am from St John’s Church to the war memorial in the castle grounds, with the silence at 11am and the service at the memorial after it, and closures ran 9.15am to 11.55am on Station Road, High Street and Market Place (Your Harrogate, 6 November 2025).

Knaresborough Town Council had published nothing about 2026 on its news and events page when we checked on 29 September.

No Remembrance road closure notice for any HG postcode had appeared on the Public Notice Portal when we checked it on 29 September. These orders are normally advertised a few weeks out, so October is when to look.

What to do with this now

  • In Harrogate, be at the War Memorial for 10.30am on 8 November. The parade and the rest of the day’s timings are still to come.
  • Community groups laying a wreath in Harrogate must register first on the town council’s form.
  • Check Ripon and Knaresborough timings from about 20 October. Neither has published its 2026 arrangements.
  • If you drive into Knaresborough on the Sunday morning, plan for a closed Market Place. It is the one town centre here that is reliably shut for the parade.
  • The 5 November concert in Ripon is bookable now. It is the only 2026 remembrance event in the district with a published price.
  • Do not trust a search result for this. Several remembrance pages for Harrogate and Ripon still carry 2024 and 2025 dates with no year on them, and they read as current.

We will update this page as each council publishes its 2026 arrangements. For getting about on the day, the current position on closures and works is on our Harrogate roadworks and travel page, and tariffs and locations are in our guide to parking in Harrogate.

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