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Old Lechlade
An account of Lechlade
written early in the 19th
CenturyTo-day the steeple
town is
full
of bustle and excitement, for it is
September Horse Fair. This is usually
called “Flea Fair,” or it should
be “Harvest Bug Fair,” because about
this time harvest bugs disappear from
the grass and stubble, and the farm
hands and gleaners are no longer
tormented with the troublesome insects.
The broad market-place in front of the
inn and beneath the shade of the spire
is packed with horses and people.
Farmers and dealers, hands in pockets,
stand in groups or saunter round the
square, viewing the animals. Here a
prospective purchaser opens the mouth
of a well-groomed horse to examine its
teeth; another lifts up a fore-foot
and scrutinises that, or feels the
fetlocks and knees. He is in want of a
couple of good horses, for Poppet is
getting a little ancient, and Colonel
has a nasty limp on the near hind leg,
and there is extra work to be done
this autumn. But the bidding will be
keen, and the farmer is considering
whether or not he will be justified in
making the outlay, though he knows
something must be done.
There are several types of yeomen
about the square and some individuals
who have come from afar off, for the
horse fair is attended by breeders and
dealers from many of the Western
Counties. There is the tall bronzed
son of Somersetshire, with highly
distinctive dialect; the bluff and
hearty moonraker, dwelling near the
breezy downs, spruce and clean shaven,
or with stiff, bristling moustache and
side-beard; the comfortable-looking
Berkshire man; the thin-featured,
gentlemanly Oxonian, and the short,
sturdy, thick-set man of
Gloucestershire, whose home is upon
the strong-blowing Cotswolds. In
addition to them are the loiterers and
sightseers— the wooden-legged
pensioner rigged in Sunday best; the
town tailor, crippled in both feet;
and, to be sure, the old blacksmith of
ninety years, who has absented himself
from the forge to-day in order to note
the condition of the horses and the
fashion in which they are shod.
Higher up the broad street are vans
and vehicles with materials for
constructing the merry-go-rounds,
cocoa-nut shies, and stalls for
gingerbreads and knick-knacks. They
stand in lines, waiting for the horses
to be sold, which will be by noon or
soon after. When the dealers have
finished they will occupy the square
and the space before the inns, and the
travellers will exhibit their wares
for the young men, women, and children
to buy. The afternoon and evening will
be devoted to pleasure. Then the
people will flock in from the villages
round about and the streets will be
full to overflowing.
It was a happy decision that fixed the
site of the church alongside the
market-place in the centre of the
town. This was most convenient in
former days, for the fairs and
festivals of the people were then more
closely associated with the church
than they are at this time. When the
strolling players came to act their
crude dramas they had their stage
built close to the walls of the sacred
pile, usually in the churchyard
itself, or if the church abutted on
the street, there they erected the
scena, and, assisted by the monks and
priests, proceeded to act their
pieces. The travelling minstrels and
ballad-singers, fiddlers, dancers, and
wrestlers assembled and made merry,
while the image of the good Saint
Lawrence, with book and gridiron,
looked down upon the mirth from above
the lofty window. The stocks stood
near to warn the people to be of good
behaviour. The last to suffer the
ignominy of them was a tippler of the
town nicknamed” Billy the Bold un,” he
having been duly apprehended and
imprisoned by one Robert Constable,
constable of Lechlade at that time.
A more important fair was held near
the river on St. John the Baptist’s
day. This was attended by a crowd of
merchants, traders, and purchasers,
who came, as to a universal mart, to
supply their domestic wants for the
following year. The merchants were
classified according to the wares they
had for disposal, and streets bearing
such names as “The Drapery,” “The
Pottery,” “The Spicery,” and so on,
were formed in the meadow. The monks,
nuns, and priests of the churches and
priories, the Lords of the Manors and
their tenants came to buy plate,
pottery, armour, cutlery, wine, wax,
spices, linens, woollens, provisions,
and other necessaries. With the rise
and increase of shops in the towns,
the pedlars’ and merchants’ fairs
decayed and soon ceased to be held.
Floods also interfered with the
emporium in the meadow, and it was
moreover said to interrupt the harvest
work, for doubtless the rustics were
not content to labour in the silent
fields far from the noise and hubbub
of the fair.
To supplement the fairs there were the
regular weekly markets, held within
the town from the beginning of the
thirteenth century downwards. They
began about noon on Sunday and were
continued until the following Monday
night. The market comprised local
produce, such as fresh meats, fish
fried or baked, pullets, geese, pigs,
green cheeses, curds, cream, oaten
cakes, and loaves of bean flour and
bran—eaten by the labourers.
The Black Death and the Peasant Revolt
brought about a scarcity of
agricultural labourers. Much land that
had grown corn crops was consequently
laid down and converted into sheep
farms, and no part of the country was
better adapted for this than were the
stony Cotswold’s, lying high and dry
above the half-drained marshes and
swamps of the Valley.
During the seventeenth century
agriculture improved again and cheese
and malt became the chief products of
the country between the Thames and the
Cotswold’s. The channel of the Thames
was cleaned out from Abingdon to
Cricklade and weirs were made in order
to allow the boats to pass freely
upstream. Barges with a carrying
capacity of eighty tons came alongside
the Lechlade wharves, and no less than
three thousand tons of prime cheese
were brought into the town from the
villages and farms annually in waggons
and conveyed by water to Oxford and
London.
Now all the horses are sold and led
away from the market-place, with the
halter of each one following fastened
to the tail of the near one preceding.
A few farmers only remain, chatting
outside the ancient inn, in which they
have partaken of a light luncheon.
Presently they depart, some by motor,
this one by the high market trap, or
on horseback. The proprietors of the
merry-go-rounds and cocoa-nut shies
make haste to occupy the square with
their paraphernalia and get ready for
the afternoon and evening sports.
Several aged inhabitants of the town
loiter in the locality of the inns,
eager to talk of the fair, as it is,
and as it used to be.
“What d’ye thenk an’t to-day,
Anngel ?” inquires the old shepherd of
the carter standing near.
“I sin better an’ I sin wuss. ‘Tis a
very good lot o’ ‘ossen, takin’ on ‘em
all together, but the faayer yent
nothin’ like so good as it used to be,
an’ Hampton comin’ sa nigh ‘andy this
un ‘tis oni the riff-raff yer to-day,
like. Tha be a leetle smaller than
I ‘ev a knowed ‘em, but, as I ses, I
sin wuss. Tha be tarblish good,
considerin’ the dry saazon we’ve hed,”
the carter replies.
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