Thousands of people flocked to the centre of Oxford to enjoy the annual St Giles’ Fair this week.
The fair, which dates back to 1625, when it was a parish festival celebrating the feast of the patron saint, St Giles, is unusual in that the road is closed to traffic for the duration of the event, held on September 6 and 7. The two-day shindig was opened by the Lord Mayor of Oxford, Councillor John Goddard, at the Hebborn’s Waltzer south of Pusey Street on Monday.
Cllr Goddard said: “St Giles' fair is a great Oxford tradition that has always moved with the times. I am sure that once again it will provide a fun occasion for all the family.”
Fairgoers enjoyed traditional fun fair rides and amusements including a coconut shy, helter skelter, carousels, dodgems and waltzers combined with up-to-date, white-knuckle rides. An annual blessing service for St Giles’ Fair was held on Sunday at the carousel near to the Martyrs’ Memorial.
In the 18th century the event was a toy fair, then in the 19th century it became a general children’s fair. The medieval fair was held in Walton Manor, where it took place in the St Giles' churchyard on St Giles Day and during the following week.
Queen Elizabeth I is believed to have stayed in Oxford between September 3 and 10 in 1567 and watched the fair from the windows of St John's College on the east side of St Giles'. Traditionally, anyone with a beershop was allowed to bring barrels of beer to St Giles' Fair for sale, while another custom was that any householder in St Giles itself could sell beer and spirits during the fair by hanging the bough of a tree over their front door.
The fair is traditionally held on the Monday and Tuesday after the Sunday following September 1, which is St Giles' Day. In 1930, Oxford's city corporation, now the Oxford City Council, took over the running of the fair, which was described by the poet John Betjeman as “about the biggest fair in England. The whole of St Giles' and even Magdalen Street by Elliston and Cavell's right up to and beyond the War Memorial, at the meeting of the Woodstock and Banbury roads, is thick with freak shows, roundabouts, cake-walks, the whip, and the witching waves.”
