Wychwood Forest fair

Reintroduced in 2000

Wychwood Forest Fair

- Wychwood’s green country show

The Wychwood Forest Fair will be ‘coming home’ in 2009 when it returns to Cornbury, the traditional site of the Fair in the nineteenth century. Thank you to Lord and Lady Rotherwick for making this possible. The Fair will be held on the last Sunday of the school summer holidays, Sunday 6th September.

The Fair is organised by the Friends of Wychwood, in support of the Wychwood Project. The Friends are reviving an old institution in modern form, to create an enjoyable approach to environmental awareness.

Typical activities at the Fair will include displays by the Wychwood Project, the local Wildlife Trust, the Wychwood Pond group, and many other local conservation and community groups. A wide range of rural crafts, some of which will allow you to ‘have a go’, will be on display. As well as an arts and crafts tent, there will be a children’s Fun Fair, a Green Man children’s story teller, and several local Morris dancing sides. There will be plenty of local food suppliers and farm produce, lots of refreshments, locally produced ice cream and - last but not least - a beer tent selling beer from the local Wychwood Brewery, based in Witney.

Somewhat surprisingly the Fair originally began as a non-conformist enterprise in the late 18th century, aiming to replace the drunken disorder of local events such as St. Giles’ Fair in Oxford and nearby Witney Feast. This increasingly successful Forest Fair was held at Newhill Plain, a large clearing in the Forest about a mile south west of Cornbury Park.

In the first half of the 19th century, Lord Churchill, the then Forest Ranger, was often in attendance, sometime accompanied by the Duke of Marlborough. The stalls were laid out to create broad regular streets, along which the aristocracy processed in their coaches at the commencement of the Fair. The local yeomanry band played and special constables kept order. Perhaps the police were not too successful, because the event was often cancelled in the early 1830s, during years of considerable political unrest.

At its height the fair continued for two days. Every nook and cranny of nearby Charlbury was filled with visitors. As well as stalls selling practical items such as textiles and provisions, there were sometimes travelling theatres, menageries, boxing booths, dancing salons and fireworks in the evening.

The Fair reached its zenith in 1853, when the nearby Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Wolverhampton Railway - now the Cotswold Line - was opened. Reports say that up to 50,000 visitors attended the Fair that year. But also at this time an Act of Parliament was passed to disafforest Wychwood. The original Forest Fair finally ceased in 1856, when Lord Churchill closed it down to curb drunkenness and debauchery. Rather like a modern landlord dealing with travellers, trenches were dug across the site of the Fair to keep out any would-be stallholders. Possibly the alleged drunkenness was a pretext, because a long-standing dispute between the Crown and Lord Churchill was settled by the clearance in the late 1850s of half the woodland remnant near Leafield for agriculture, where seven new Crown farms were created, with the other half passing indisputably to Lord Churchill.

The first modern Fair, organised by the Wychwood Project and the Friends of Wychwood, was held at Combe on a modest scale in 2000 to celebrate the creation of the Wychwood Way, a 37 mile circular trail around Wychwood. Subsequent Fairs have been held annually at different locations around the Wychwood area - including Cogges Farm Museum near Witney, Lower Farm Ramsden, Charlbury and Capps Lodge - to demonstrate the extent of the former Forest and to involve more people in the activities of the Wychwood Project.

Each year the modern Fair, which tries to avoid much of the commercialisation of so many modern country shows, has emphasised a different theme, such as local environmental activities, revived rural skills and locally produced food.

The principal impresario for the modern Forest Fair is Ken Betteridge, Chairman of the Friends of Wychwood. ‘The fair has grown each year,’ said Ken. ‘Initially, we used local village halls and a country museum for our venues. This year we have been generously offered a site at Cornbury, near Charlbury where our marquees will be at the heart of the Forest. This is a great site for the Fair, but it will involve a lot of hard work by us and our supporters.

‘Many Friends of Wychwood and their families help at the Fair. Attendance has increased annually, and we expect several thousand visitors this year. There may not be as many visitors as in the nineteenth century, but it’s still an achievement – considering the modern fair has only been revived for less than 10 years. Our Forest Fair has become a real local event. We are delighted this year to return the Fair to Cornbury - do come along and join us’ said Mr Betteridge.

If you would like to help at the Fair, please contact the project office on 01993 814142.