Historic fair marks start of autumn season

One of Oxford's oldest traditions has returned to the city centre this week - marking the start of a busy season of fairs across the county.

St Giles' Fair, which takes over St Giles and Magdalen Street every September, is running from 11:00 to 23:00 BST on Monday and Tuesday this week.

The fair has been a fixture in Oxford for centuries and is believed to be one of the largest of its kind in Europe.

It is the first of seven historic fairs taking place across the county this autumn, running through to mid-October.

St Giles' Fair evolved from a parish celebration first recorded in 1624, marking the feast day of Oxford's patron saint, St Giles.

Queen Elizabeth I is said to have watched the fair from the windows of St John's College during a visit to Oxford in 1567.

By the 1780s it had become a toy fair selling cheap goods, before developing into a general fair with stalls and rides by 1800.

From the 1830s it grew rowdier, with adult amusements drawing calls for it to be shut down, while the arrival of the railway brought visitors from as far afield as Birmingham and Cardiff.

Among the fair's most celebrated attractions was Alf Ball, a former professional boxer from Hull who began bringing his travelling boxing booth to Oxford in around 1887.

Sarah Elizabeth Cox, who is writing a book about Ball, said he was constantly looking for new ways to entertain the crowds.

"He becomes a guy who doesn't want to just put on boxing," she told BBC Radio Oxford's Secret Oxfordshire podcast.

"He wants to put on novelties as well, things that are going to keep people interested."

By the late 1890s, Ball had become one of Britain's pioneers of the bioscope, bringing moving pictures to fairgrounds years before cinema became widespread - a novelty that Cox said "blew people's minds".

The poet John Betjeman, writing about the fair in the 1930s, described it as one of the biggest fairs in England, painting a picture of a street crowded with roundabouts, sideshows, fortune tellers and the noise of steam engines and brass bands.

Oxford City Council took over running the fair in 1930, and still organises it today alongside the Showmen's Guild of Great Britain.

It remains free to attend, with individual charges for rides and stalls.

Witney's turn comes next, with the Golden Gallopers service taking place on Sunday 13 September, kicking off the Witney Feast on Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 September at The Leys.

The Feast was established to mark the rededication of St Mary's Church and is thought to date back almost 800 years.

Its traditional opening ceremony - a blessing of the Golden Gallopers carousel - still links the modern fair its roots.

Billed as Oxfordshire's largest funfair, it boasts some of the biggest rides in the region, including big wheels and rollercoasters not seen at St Giles'.

Thame's Street Fun Fair runs from Thursday 17 to Saturday 19 September, taking over the town's high street with dodgems, waltzers and traditional fairground food.

Thame's market charter dates back to 1215, and the town later developed a Charter Fair, which this year falls separately on 9 and 10 October.

Chipping Norton's Mop Fair runs from Thursday 17 to Sunday 20 September.

It is believed to date back to the 12th Century, making it around 900 years old and one of the oldest fairs in the region.

Like other mop fairs, it began as a hiring fair, where labourers, servants and tradespeople would gather to look for work for the year ahead, often carrying a symbol of their trade to advertise their skills.

The Nichols family has provided rides for the fair for the past 100 years.

Abingdon's Michaelmas Fair, often described as the longest street fair in Europe, runs from Sunday 4 to Wednesday 7 October through the Market Place, High Street and Ock Street.

Its origins lie in the labour shortages that followed the Black Death, when hiring fairs sprang up to match workers with employers for the year ahead.

A smaller event, the Runaway Fair, follows a week later, traditionally giving workers a chance to change their minds about contracts agreed at the main fair.

Rounding off the season, Banbury's Michaelmas Fair runs from Wednesday 14 to Saturday 17 October, with the mayor traditionally opening proceedings with a golden key that grants free rides to anyone he touches with it.

The fair is thought to date back around 400 years to the 17th Century.

It began as a hiring event known as a mop fair, before growing into more of an entertainment attraction during the Victorian era.

Woodstock's Street Fair also runs from 4 to 7 October, with the main fair days falling on the first Monday and Tuesday of the month.

The town's fair dates back to a royal charter granted by Henry II in 1179, which established a weekly market and annual fair.