*Ø* Blogmanac September | Stourbridge (or Stirbitch) Fair, for a fortnight, Stourbridge, England
The largest fair in the world
If the husbandmen who rent the land, do not get their corn off before a certain day in August, the fair-keepers may trample it under foot and spoil it to build their booths, or tents, for all the fair is kept in tents and booths. On the other hand, to balance that severity, if the fair-keepers have not done their business of the fair, and removed and cleared the field by another certain day in September, the ploughmen may come in again, with plough and cart, and overthrow all, and trample into the dirt; and as for the filth, dung, straw, etc. necessarily left by the fair- keepers, the quantity of which is very great, it is the farmers' fees, and makes them full amends for the trampling, riding, and carting upon, and hardening the ground.
Daniel Defoe, Tour through Great Britain: Stourbridge Fair, 1724
This ancient fair started in 1211 with a grant from King John formalising an annual fair held by the Leper Hospital at Steresbrigge, between August 24 and September 29. In 1589, King Henry VIII granted a charter to administer the fair to the magistrates and corporation of Cambridge University, The Cambridge University vice chancellor had the same powers at the fair he had at the university, with the University controlling the weights and measures. In the seventeeth century it was the largest fair in England, and at one time Stourbridge was the largest fair in Europe.
Stourbridge was described by Daniel Defoe in 1724 as "not only the greatest in the whole nation but in the whole world". In the drapers' section, called the "Duddery," it was said that over £100,000 worth of woollens had been sold in less than a week. By the mid-18th century it had declined. Its importanced dwindled even more thereafter and the fair was abolished in 1934.
The name came from a Cam tributary, the Stour, at the eastern end of the common. John Bunyan used Stourbridge Fair as the model for Vanity Fair (pictured above)in Pilgrim's Progress, which in turn prompted Thackeray's Vanity Fair.
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The largest fair in the world
If the husbandmen who rent the land, do not get their corn off before a certain day in August, the fair-keepers may trample it under foot and spoil it to build their booths, or tents, for all the fair is kept in tents and booths. On the other hand, to balance that severity, if the fair-keepers have not done their business of the fair, and removed and cleared the field by another certain day in September, the ploughmen may come in again, with plough and cart, and overthrow all, and trample into the dirt; and as for the filth, dung, straw, etc. necessarily left by the fair- keepers, the quantity of which is very great, it is the farmers' fees, and makes them full amends for the trampling, riding, and carting upon, and hardening the ground.
Daniel Defoe, Tour through Great Britain: Stourbridge Fair, 1724
This ancient fair started in 1211 with a grant from King John formalising an annual fair held by the Leper Hospital at Steresbrigge, between August 24 and September 29. In 1589, King Henry VIII granted a charter to administer the fair to the magistrates and corporation of Cambridge University, The Cambridge University vice chancellor had the same powers at the fair he had at the university, with the University controlling the weights and measures. In the seventeeth century it was the largest fair in England, and at one time Stourbridge was the largest fair in Europe.
Stourbridge was described by Daniel Defoe in 1724 as "not only the greatest in the whole nation but in the whole world". In the drapers' section, called the "Duddery," it was said that over £100,000 worth of woollens had been sold in less than a week. By the mid-18th century it had declined. Its importanced dwindled even more thereafter and the fair was abolished in 1934.
The name came from a Cam tributary, the Stour, at the eastern end of the common. John Bunyan used Stourbridge Fair as the model for Vanity Fair (pictured above)in Pilgrim's Progress, which in turn prompted Thackeray's Vanity Fair.
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
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