The Fun of the Fair by Audrey Mead
May 2007The day was remarkably fine, and the picturesque appearance of the ground, being on a slope and affording an animated view of the whole Fair with its rustic booths, open fires and busy groups, was enlivened by the cheerful sounds of the church bells. Upwards of 1,800 sheep were penned, just 50 bullocks, some good plough horses that sold well and some rather poor hackneys and ponies.
This was in November 1834, but the name of the field opposite Broomfield Green has long been the only reminder of a day eagerly anticipated annually for more than six centuries. In 1259 the charter to hold the Fair was granted to John de la Lynde, Lord of the Manor, by Henry III and it continued into the 1890s, although declining considerably in its latter years. The church being dedicated to All Saints the date was chosen, as was generally the custom, to follow the celebrations on that special day, so the Fair was held on November 2nd, “the morrow upon Allhallowstideâ€. The 1751 change in the calendar moved it forward to November 13th.
A Somerset county historian writing in 1791 said that the fair was ‘for coarse cloth and all sorts of cattle’; the latter would have included sheep and “lean stock†(bullocks) for fattening. It was always a popular venue for horse dealers, some honest, some less so. Many frauds were perpetrated, even painting the animal if it had been stolen: there was a long court case about a dark bay mare with ‘but one eare and a white tayle’, said to have been exchanged but more likely to have been acquired illegally. Another case concerned sheep, alleged to have been bought at the fair and paid for at the toulsey (where dues payable were entered in a toll book) but actually stolen and re-sold some miles away.
‘All the parte of the Waste Ground commonly called Broomfield Green or Broomfield Street together with the profits of standings to be sett up there during the time of the faire’ was let for the annual rent of one shilling in the 1700s. Lengths of material - since few ready made clothes were then available - hats, boots and shoes would have been on sale, as well as ribbons and trinkets, sweetmeats and gingerbread, which the young men bought as ‘fairings’ for their sweethearts. Refreshments were an essential. An Enmore Rector recalled the traditional fare as ‘toasted biscuits and cider’, the drink probably spiced with ginger. ‘Cold day! Mind ‘ee of Gin and Cider Fair’ was still a familiar saying in the district in the 1920s referring to Broomfield’s often chilly Fair Day.
Cheap jacks and a gypsy fortune-teller, a quack doctor and various amusement booths would have added interest to the proceedings. Visitors came from a wide area, often riding upon donkeys - one year two animals died after eating yew while tied up nearby.
The fair provided a popular occasion for meeting old acquaintances, exchanging news, farming talk and so on but, as at most similar gatherings, rogues and pickpockets were among the crowd. In 1843 the Gazette reported: ‘A mob of 20 villains assembled, to the terror of the peaceable inhabitants of the place, and after beating and abusing them in a shameful manner, they broke the windows and also the furniture of those houses which provided refreshments for visitors. Mrs Jenkins, a respectable widow (she lived in part of what is now Fyne Court Cottage) has been a great sufferer, not only in having her furniture smashed to pieces but she found that she had received 19 counterfeit half-crowns from the same desperate gang of swindlers.’
A sad end to a long awaited day.
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