A personal account of time at the Horse Fair

Horses on Church Green. Men with white flags kept the horses under control. A strip of white rag was tied on the tail of a horse when it was sold. In later years, a white sticker was stuck to their rumps. Note the temporary railing in front of Church Gate house. Ladies and children stayed safe in the churchyard while they watched proceedings

Fair in Market Square, held at Horse Fair time

Horse Fair outside the Talbot. Several carts outside Thompson's the high class grocers. Note everyone, young and old, is wearing a hat of some sort.

Scene of the horse fair in Bridge Street outside the Horse Shoe Inn and Percy Hughes' butchers shop. It must have been taken before 1925 because the Horse Shoe was gutted by fire that year. Hurdles placed over the ground floor windows were to stop the horses from sticking their heads through the windows. Horses with a white spot on their rumps have been sold.

Horse Fair pre WW I outside the Wheat Sheaf inn. Boys are collecting horse manure for vegetable gardens. Note the windows are quite different in what is now the HSBC bank and the butchers. The Wheat Sheaf became the Post Office about 1971 and became a private house in 2010 when the post office moved to the Town Hall and it became a private house.

Horse fair with these animals at the south end of Church View. Notice that the ladies also came out to see the horses making it a spectacle and event for all to enjoy.

The Horse Fair in Bridge Street looking east. At one time, it was one of the larger horse fairs in the country. Boys with barrows collected the horse dung for sale. The Wheatsheaf became the post office in 1972 and a private house in 2010 when the post office moved to the middle room of the Town Hall. The three semi-circular windows in the first floor of was the HSBC bank (in 2014) and Patrick Strainge butchers have been altered at some point to look like their neighbouring upstairs windows.

The annual horse fair in Bampton. These horses are in Church Street. Note that both men and women wore hats and ladies' clothes were generally down to their ankles.