West Lydford fair and the fair place
FAIRS AT WEST LYDFORD
In 1260 Nicholas FitzMartin was given the right to hold a three-day fair around the feast of St Peter ad Vincula [1 Aug.].[1] In 1411 the manor received 1s. 9d. and in 1449 7s. 8 ½ d. from the fair.[2] The Tolhouse, let for 6d. in the early 15th century, may not have been very profitable as in 1410 the tenant was allowed her rent for charity.[3] The Tolsey house was let for lives at 4s. in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the early 18th century the lessee also had the fair profits and was bailiff of the Ascension fair.[4] In the 1790s the Fair Place and tolls were only rated at 1d.[5] A small building on the Green in 1827, since demolished, may have been the Tolsey house.[6]
The August fair in 1692 was attended by a Bruton brazier[7] and was recorded throughout the 18th century[8] as a small peddling fair. The Ascension fair, said to have begun c. 1630,[9] had its own bailiff and was attended by pedlars from Swindon in 1701 and cattle dealers.[10] In 1748 fairs were suspended because of cattle disease.[11] In the 1780s the August fair, then held on the 12th August, was noted for cattle, horses, and toys.[12] Fairs, on Lydford Fair Place, also called Lydford Green, easily accessible from the Fosse,[13] were said in 1840 to be held on 7 May, 12 Aug. and 15 Sep.[14] Old Fair Place recorded in 1851 may imply that fairs were no longer held there and there is no record of any being held after that date.[15]
THE FAIR PLACE
The fair ground, known as Lydford Green and later as the Fair Place, was strategically situated between the village and the Fosse way on a road, known as High Street in the village, which crossed the Brue and divided at the Fair Place. The eastern branch, East Street in 1841, crossed the Fosse to become Eastfield lane to Lovington and the northern route, Dials Gate Lane, continued to Lottisham across the bridge called Dial’s Gate in 1827.
Lydford Green was a triangular area surrounded by banks, vestiges of which survive, to keep the livestock at the fair from roaming and to allow animals to graze there at other times. Houses were built around it, possibly by 1600 when its banks had been breached for wain access,[16] probably to house an increasing population. Thirty-one men were mustered in 1539[17] and 105 people paid poll tax or subsidy in 1641.[18] Certainly by the 18th century the fair ground was surrounded by houses and paddocks.[19]
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Mary Siraut Page 3 Somerset Reference
[1] Cal. Chart. 1257—1300, 27.
[2] The National Archive (TNA), SC 6/971/32; SC 6/972/12.
[3] Ibid. SC 6/971/32, SC 6/972/14.
[4] Somerset Record Office (SRO), DD/SF 3149; DD/X/BTN 1; DD/JC 10; ibid. Q/SR 220/2—3.
[5] Ibid. D/P/w.lyd 4/1/1.
[6] Ibid. Q/RDe 87; OS Map 1:10560, Som. LXIV. NW (1886 edn).
[7] SRO, Q/SR 189/4.
[8] Ibid. D/D/Cd 112, f. 79; I.F.H. Jones, ‘Somerset Fairs’, PSAS. 91 (1946), 73.
[9] SRO, DD/SAS C/1193/4.
[10] Ibid. Q/SR 220/2—3; 287/4.
[11] Ibid. Q/SO 12.
[12] Ibid. A/AQP 9.
[13] Ibid. Q/RDe 87; ibid. DD/SF 4031; W. Phelps, History and Antiquities of Somerset (1836), I, 466; PO Dir. Som. (1861); OS Map 1:10560, Som. LXIV. NW (1886 edn).
[14] Co. Gaz. Dir. Som. (1840).
[15] TNA, HO 107/1933.
[16] SRO, DD/SF 403; ibid. Q/RDe 87; OS Map 1:10560, Som. LXIV. NW (1886 edn).
[17] L&P Hen. VIII, XIV (1), p. 289.
[18] OS Map 1:10560, Som. LXIV. NW (1886 edn); OS Map 1:25000, sheet 141 (1998 edn); A.J. Howard & T.L. Stoate (ed.), Som. Protestation Returns (1975), 205.
[19] SRO, DD/X/COK 1: information from notes supplied by Helen Weinstein, the original document being unavailable; ibid. Q/RDe 87.