Stourbridge Fair brings history to life at Leper Chapel
Stourbridge Fair – part medieval reenactment, part family-friendly day festival – took place at one of Cambridge’s oldest buildings, the Leper Chapel, last weekend.
The event has grown but at its heart there’s a market feel to it. You can pop along, have a look around, maybe buy something from a stand, and catch up with members of the community that maybe you hadn’t seen since last year’s gathering.
The Saturday fair is growing on solid roots which date back to its inception by Royal Charter in 1211, through its middle ages heyday when it became the leading fair in Europe for goods including food, textiles, dyes and oils. The accompanying entertainment and revelry expanded similarly until 1589’s fair, from August 24 to September 29 – an impressive innings for an outdoor event in autumnal England for any generation.
The fair is now run by Cambridge Past, Present & Future, which own the 12th-century chapel – one of the oldest complete buildings left in Cambridge – and grounds around it.
This year the number of stands had grown, and Cambridge-based medieval choir Evovae performed for the first time.
The event opened at midday with a proclamation made by the university proctors, marshals and constables, and the mayor of Cambridge. Evovae sang in the chapel at 12.30pm and the regular storytelling tent opened. At 1pm author and expert Leper Chapel historian Honor Ridout gave a talk titled ‘The chapel and the fair’.
The Play of Robin Hood puppet show by Quentin Robinson then took place on the lawn, followed by the costumed dancers of the Capriol Society for Early Dance who performed the first of their afternoon dances.
At 2pm Gwenda Kyd, a chemist and Bach flower remedy practitioner, gave a talk in the chapel titled ‘Medieval medicinal plants’: events continued outside through the humid afternoon, with the longest queue being for the ice cream stall in the car park area.
“We’ve had probably 1,200 visitors to the fair this year so far,” said Cambridge PPF warden Jess Norris, who organised this year’s event for the charity.
“There are 25 vendors this year including the storytellers, Cambridge Bodgers – green woodworking – Cambridgeshire Bee Keeping Association, and the Capriol dancers. The Museum of Cambridge and Camcycle also had stalls to represent more modern eras.”
Out in the far field was a trading group called The Shire of Flintheath, whose motto is ‘Learn history by living it!’.
“We’re part of the Society of Creative Anachronism,” says John. This is an international living history group with 30,000 members who study and recreate medieval European cultures and their histories.
“The Shire of Flintheath covers Cambridgeshire-ish,” adds John. “It includes the Fens but our regular meetings are at Waterbeach.
“I do metalwork largely and there are four other stands in the group. There’s an apothecary station run by Rebecca, then Dom who does finger loop braiding – that’s braiding by hand. Milada does medieval cookery and specialises in the spices they used, while Joanne is talking about wool with visitors. We tend to think of ourselves as living history...”
