Banbury's extraordinary Michaelmas Fair.
Every autumn the Michaelmas Fair crams itself into the Market Place, Cow Market and surrounding lanes. The rides whizz alarmingly close to the buildings, and the noise, chaos and smells make it feel like a medieval experience.
Banbury’s Michaelmas Fair originated as what was called a Hiring fair and it dates back some 600 to 700 years. Farm workers, labourers, domestic servants and some craftsmen would work for their employer for a year at a time, from October to October. At the end of their employment they would attend the Hiring Fair dressed in their Sunday best clothes. The prospective workers would gather in the street or market place, often sporting some sort of badge or tool to denote their speciality; shepherds held a crook or a tuft of wool, cowmen brought wisps of straw, dairymaids carried a milking stool or pail and housemaids held brooms or mops, hence the derivation of the term “Mop Fair”.
Banbury was known for its fairs and by 1836 there were 13, several of which were connected with the buying and selling of livestock. Four years earlier 4,600 sheep, 1,220 cows, 300 pigs and 200 horses were brought to a Michaelmas Fair otherwise known as the great hiring fair.
It's long been a rowdy fun event. In 1855 some 20,000 visitors (1851 population of Banbury 8,793) descended on the Thursday. Inevitably this produced a dense mass of people who were drawn especially to the front of the town hall where they discovered Sangers Royal Circus and not far away swinging boats, a shooting gallery, peep shows and more than 100 nut stalls. It’s small wonder that the local paper of the day claimed “a tolerable picture of our Michaelmas Fair was the usual din of music, hooting, bawling, singing, laughing and firing”.
Nothing seems to have changed!
Banbury's extraordinary Michaelmas Fair.
Every autumn the Michaelmas Fair crams itself into the Market Place, Cow Market and surrounding lanes. The rides whizz alarmingly close to the buildings, and the noise, chaos and smells make it feel like a medieval experience.
Banbury’s Michaelmas Fair originated as what was called a Hiring fair and it dates back some 600 to 700 years. Farm workers, labourers, domestic servants and some craftsmen would work for their employer for a year at a time, from October to October. At the end of their employment they would attend the Hiring Fair dressed in their Sunday best clothes. The prospective workers would gather in the street or market place, often sporting some sort of badge or tool to denote their speciality; shepherds held a crook or a tuft of wool, cowmen brought wisps of straw, dairymaids carried a milking stool or pail and housemaids held brooms or mops, hence the derivation of the term “Mop Fair”.
Banbury was known for its fairs and by 1836 there were 13, several of which were connected with the buying and selling of livestock. Four years earlier 4,600 sheep, 1,220 cows, 300 pigs and 200 horses were brought to a Michaelmas Fair otherwise known as the great hiring fair.
It's long been a rowdy fun event. In 1855 some 20,000 visitors (1851 population of Banbury 8,793) descended on the Thursday. Inevitably this produced a dense mass of people who were drawn especially to the front of the town hall where they discovered Sangers Royal Circus and not far away swinging boats, a shooting gallery, peep shows and more than 100 nut stalls. It’s small wonder that the local paper of the day claimed “a tolerable picture of our Michaelmas Fair was the usual din of music, hooting, bawling, singing, laughing and firing”.
Nothing seems to have changed!