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.