The Wansdyke & District Forums

Another from my hobby-horse, forgive an old man. The great sheep fairs. Before the marts, the sheep changed hands at the hilltop fairs, held the same week every year for centuries, tens of thousands of sheep on a down for a few days and then gone, the turf cropped to nothing and the place empty again till the next year. Tan Hill fair was the great one hereabouts, up on the high down, miles from anywhere, no village, no buildings, just the fair-ground worn into the hill and the name. Yarnbury Castle held one inside the old hillfort. They are all gone now, killed by the railways and the marts and the lorries. But you can still find the fair-grounds: a flatness on a hilltop, a pond, a hollowed way the flocks came up by. A whole town that appeared for three days a year and was nowhere at all the rest of the time. I find that wonderful, and a little sad.

What a lovely thing to raise, George, and welcome to the forum. Tan Hill is exactly right, the highest fair in Wessex they used to say, and there are wonderful photographs of the last ones before the first war, the shepherds and the hurdles and the beer tents, all on that empty top. You have put your finger on something that belongs in this forum especially: a place that was only a place for a few days a year, and is now just a name on a high blank hill. We collect the vanished here, and the fairs are a kind of vanishing that nobody thinks to mourn. I am very glad you joined us.