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A wagon load of hop 'pockets' at Alton in 1899
Photo courtesy of Hampshire Life magazine
These days Weyhill, three miles to the west of
Andover, is an unpretentious and unremarkable little village. But once upon a time it was famous throughout
Britain for a fair which drew enormous crowds. Indeed, Weyhill Fair was reckoned to be the largest in the land.
The fair's antiquity is illustrated by a reference to it as far back as 1362, twenty years before Chaucer
published The Canterbury Talcs, in William Langland's Piers Plowman. What historian Osmund Airy called "the first
true English poem" has these lines:
To Weyhill and Winchester I went to the fair
With all manner of wares, as my master bade.
"All manner of wares" there was indeed. Horses,
cattle and oilier livestock were bought and sold, and in the fairground's trading booths you could find food,
clothing, liquor, ornaments, all manner of provisions and fancy goods. There were cures for anything that
ailed you and there were sideshows of human freaks and exotic animals.
You could even sell your wife (there were examples
of wife-selling up until the last century). Weyhill Fair inspired that dramatic passage in Hardy's The Mayor of
Casterbridge in which the drunken Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a sailor.
Some fairs in other parts of the land would be known for their horses, cattle, cloth or other specialities,
but Weyhill's, lasting for three weeks from October 10, was really several in one. There would be separate days
for the Sheep Fair, the Horse Fair, the Beasts Fair, the Cheese Fair, the Leather Fair and the Hop Fair... but the
Pleasure Fair was held every day. Here the boxing booths were very popular and many a champion-to-be
served his apprenticeship in them. Such a man was Joe Beckett, one time British heavyweight champion.
When Weyhill Fair began nobody knows, but the young Princess Elizabeth, in a letter to Cecil in 1554,
referred to "Wacehill Fair" as being already 400 years old. It may well have had origins in pagan times.
certainly there is a pagan ceremony connected with it.
This is "the horning of the colts", an initiation ceremony for young men visiting the fair for the first
me. An initiate would drink from a cup placed between a pair of ram's horns while his friends sang a song
recorded a few years back by the famous folk singerMartin Carthy). This ran:
So swiftly runs the hare, so keen runs the fox,
Why shouldn't this young colt grow up to he an ox
And get his own living 'mongst briar and thorns
And drink like his daddy with a long pair of horns?
Another tradition long associated with the fair
conconcerned the wearing of "favours" by tradesmen wishing to be hired by farmers for the year to come. A shepherd,
for example, would wear a wisp of wool, or a thresher an ear of corn.
Now for that intriguing Lloyds Bank connection mentioned earlier. Back in the 17th century Farnham
farmers and hop growers found themselves being regularly robbed of their cash on their way back from
Weyhill Fair, so they formed an armed band of "Farnham Gentlemen" to protect them on the way
home.
In course of time the "gentlemen" were asked to look after their money on a permanent basis. And so a
"bank" was formed which eventually became Lloyds!
In the 16th century, like fairs in other parts of the land, Weyhill's had its own court to deal with disputes
and dispensejustice at a time when violence and disorder were commonplace. This was called the Court of Pie
Powder, from the French "pied poudre," or dusty foot, implying that offenders were dealt with before dust fell
from their feet...
Crowds were once so thick at the fair that, it was claimed, you could walk from one end to the other on
people's heads, but a decline in numbers set in around the Great War. Eventually the fair dwindled away,
though an attempt at a revival was made in the Fifties. It proved a flop.
"Oh, what sights did I see there" runs the old song Weyhill Fair (popularly revived by folk singers John
Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris back in the Seventies). But now the sights are less impressive —just a few stalls that
once were fairground booths. The old Sun pub, though, has a nice new name: The Weyhill Fair.
Going to the Fair
Arthur Blackham visits St Giles & Weyhill
(courtesy of Hampshire Life Magazine)
In years gone by, going to the fair was a great
event, attended by one and all. Before the advent of the railway, metalled roads and the
car, getting there involved carriages, wagons, horse power or your own two feet. Taking your
goods to the fair might involve teams of horse and progress could be as slow as 2 miles per
hour with the whole journey taking two or three days.
There were travelling amusement fairs such as the Merry Fairs and the Bourne Revels and
there were also trading fairs, or like some of the large agricultural shows today, they became a
combination of both. Hampshire had two of the most famous fairs in the country - the St Giles
Hill Fair was held on 12th September - it was said to have been founded by William Rufus
and the tolls went to pay for Winchester Cathedral. The other fair was at Weyhill, near
Andover, said to date from 1225 which continued until 1959.
At St Giles Hill Fair, traders came from Spain, France, Italy and Holland and an
incredible range of goods were on sale. Traders making their way from the Channel ports were
a target for robbers and the 'Pass of Alton' between that town and Farnham was so
notorious that a guard of armed men was set up to give the traders safe
conduct. Black Death came to the land in 1348 and traders were no longer
willing to travel any distance and the fair became one more victim of the
disease.
Entrance to Weyhill Fair Weyhill Fair was the longest lived of any of the rural fairs and was actually three separate fairs held on
11th April, the last Friday in July and from October 9th to the 12th. It was held to the west of Andover on the Fair
Ground, a parcel of land at the junction of two ancient ways - the 'Gold
road' from Holyhead which was reputedly used to carry Irish gold to south
coast ports - and the Harrow Way, one of our oldest trade routes running
from the West Country through the heart of Southern England to Dover. Weyhill was also at the junction of six other 'drift roads' to major settlements
in the region.
Weyhill was the fair which provided the factual information upon which
Thomas Hardy based his fictionalised account of wife-selling in The Mayor
ofCasterbridge. Thieves and vagabonds were drawn to the fair and often the
only way to keep hold of your money was to sew it into the lining of your
clothes. In its heyday it was a gigantic amalgam of stock market, superstore
and theme park. There could be up to 100,000 sheep sold in a day; there
were horse dealers and cattle sales, there were booths selling ales, cheese,
jewellery, clothing and a great variety of household goods. There was a wide
range of amusements including side shows, freak shows, boxing and wrestling booths and humble swings and roundabouts. Substantial stalls
were built to house some of the established traders and these were eventually made permanent - some of these can
still be seen on the site today.
Hop Booth at Weyhill Fair
Photo courtesy of Hampshire Life Magazine
Many thousands of pounds changed hands during the course of a fair. In his record of
cartage fees from 1758, John Bradley, an Alresford farmer recorded: "to Waihill fair 100
butts - £2-2s-ld. 16 hd of hops 16 shillings..." the 'butts' here may have been ale - and on his way
back "8 hd hemp seed 8 shillings, 4 hd of cheese 4 shillings, 24 tabbs of butter 18 shillings."
As with many fairs there would also be a hiring fair attached to it and prospective
employers took on specialist hands to help them through the next year.
Weyhill's hop fair was held on October 12th and all the hops from Famham and Alton were
taken here in huge 'pockets' loaded on the back of the carter's wagons. Farnham hops always
got the best price and were sold from booths on Blissimore Hall Acre, an area behind the
substantial cob walling, some of which with the booths, is all that remain of this great fair. Thanks must go to the efforts of local people -
through them these monuments to Hampshire's greatest fair are now listed and protected. BACK
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