WELLINGTON MIDSUMMER FAYRE

The Midsummer Fayre takes place annually on the second Saturday in June, 10am - 3pm around Wellington's Market Square, All Saints Church and Market Hall. Introduced by the town crier and with a host of stalls set up outside the parish church, this annual event is inspired by the ancient June fayres that were being held in Wellington as far back as the 13th century, and the town's annual 'Jubilee' celebrations of the 1770s.

To download a copy of the 2011 programme:

For photos of recent fayres:

And if you'd like to dress up like a Georgian and join the procession:  

We are very grateful to the main sponsors of the event are Wellington Market Company and Wellington Town Council, who make the fayre possible. Above all, we are indebted to All Saints Church for opening up their church and grounds for the event, and for all their hard work in making it a success.

THE EVENT'S ORIGINS
June fayres were taking place in Wellington at least as far back as the 13th century, when the town’s Market Charter of 1244 sanctioned a fayre to take place on the Vigil, Feast and Morrow of St Barnabas (10th-12th June). An important commercial event in Wellington’s calendar, it is likely that street entertainers would have been there to make the most of the large crowds and long hours of daylight - just as they are today.

Five hundred years later in the 1770s, the June fayres were still taking place, but the town’s most colourful annual celebration seems to have been the Wellington Jubilee.
This was staged slightly earlier in the year at Whitsun, and was advertised in the newly established Shrewsbury Chronicle newspaper from 1773 - 78. Described then as an ‘ancient festival’, it perhaps dated back much further. It comprised ‘a breakfast of tea, coffee and chocolate’ on The Green (the area just north of the parish church), followed by a costumed procession through town and, at night, a ‘Ball and Assembly’.

It is from these past fayres and Jubilees that today’s re-vived Midsummer Fayre takes its inspiration, stirring together six centuries of festivities and folk culture from the 13th to the 19th centuries, when Wellington’s June fayres disappeared.

HELP SUPPORT THIS EVENT
If you would also like to make a contribution and help ensure that Wellington's ancient June fayres don't disappear for another 200 years, you can make out a cheque to Sounds in The Square and post it to Anthony Nicholls, care of Ken Francis Butchers, 9 Market Street, Wellington, TF1 1DT. Please include your address and phone number / email so we can thank you! H2A will not pass on your details to any third party.