Jessica couldn’t get to the fair this year and so she asked me to take a picture of her favourite ride. She remembers it best as Jump ‘n’ Smile. More recently it has been known as Froggit. This year it had been reincarnated as Super Bounce.

I sometimes try to imagine what Abingdon Fair was like in the past with the help of old newspapers … In 1830, instead of Superbowl, you might have seen “an exhibition of wild animals and fat ladies, and elephant and dwarfs, monkeys with hands and a child without any.”

Instead of The Waltzers “for  the price of one penny, you could have seen the lying in state and funeral procession of George IVth, and the glorious battle of Paris during the very last revolution.”

In 1840 “Our Police Force needed to be vigilant in detecting the hordes of pick-pockets who could be seen in every direction pursuing their vocation.”

By 1882 rides had started to replace the shows, and exhibitions, so instead of Captain Hook  you could have experienced “Bailey’s Steam Yachts with the simulated motion of the sea. Three electric lamps stationed outside gave a brilliant light, but they were not seen to best advantage amid the smoke and the blaze of paraffin lamps.”

“Birds was the only steam roundabout at the fair , but there was a rickety one in the Sheep Market at which a pony provided the power.”

It has been raining all day, but that did not stop people going to the fair. It was just not so crowded as previous years.

But there were still a lot of fun lovers: many with umbrellas and waterproofs, and quite a few who did did not seem to worry about getting wet on this one day in the year.

At least being a Street Fair it does not get muddy underfoot

and you can fly above the rain on some rides.

Maybe tomorrow the weather will be better.

The Michaelmas Fair in Abingdon was set up in the years following 1349 when Black Death swept the country. Laborers had become scarce and a new law was introduced to regulate wages – to be set at the Michaelmas Quarter Sessions.

In Abingdon the annual hiring fair was held on the Monday following Michaelmas and has continued to this day. Its importance as a hiring fair has long since disappered.

There is now a mile long Street Fair stretching from the Market Place to the end of Ock Street – held on the Monday, and Tuesday, before October 11th.

2015 is another year, and the Fun Fair was set up this Sunday morning with a lot of hard work and logistical experience.

It is the first year that the new Mayott House, independent living scheme, on Ock Street, has experienced the Fair, and for three days it looks like Sunset Strip.

There has been a religious service of sorts, at the start of the Michalemas Fair, for a very long time. Mr Woodford, Father and Son, have offered Woodford’s Golden Galloping Horses as a venue in the last few decades.

There was a short service with hymns and a blessing took place this evening at the Galloping Horses. But for family reasons Mr Woodford could not be there and so Hebborns of Oxford helped out with their carousel.

Then everybody was given a free ride on the horses.

The service used to be a chance for the town to show their appreciation to the show people. Back in the Abingdon Herald of 14th October 1882 it says “The show people were regaled at the Liberal Hall with a substantial tea, to which over a hundred did justice, and after their bodily wants had been satisfied, addresses, interspersed with hymns, were given.