Category: Fair: Yarnbury Castle

Yarnbury Fair Of No Little Account

W.H. Hudson, in A Shepherd’s Life, published in 1910, referring to the sheep fair that was held at “Yarnborough Castle, the name of a vast prehistoric earthwork on one of the high downs between Warminster and Amesbury,” says:

“There is no village there and no house near; it is nothing but an immense circular wall and trench, inside of which the fair is held. It was formerly one of the most important sheep-fairs in the country, but for the last two or three decades has been falling off and is now of little account.”

Yarnbury Camp

From A Handbook For Residents And Travellers in Wilts And Dorset, published by John Murray, 1899:

Yarnbury Camp, a very perfect and interesting work, placed on the summit of a solitary eminence of the great Plain, the undulating surface of which is seen from it in a panoramic view. It is circular, and of great size, the entrenchments being two banks and ditches, the inner about 50ft. deep. The principal entrance faces the E., and is defended by a complicated outwork. Another entrance on the S., should be noticed for its complete preservation. E. of Yarnbury are Steeple Langford Downs, with singular and diversified earthworks and mounds, probably the sites of huts. On the 4th of October Yarnbury is the scene of an annual fair for the sale of sheep and colts. The old road from Salisbury to Bath (now but little used) skirted the camp on the E., and its course is still marked by many of the milestones.

Yarnbury Fair Date Change, 1752

A notice in the Salisbury Journal, Monday 17 August 1752, reads:

“WHEREAS a large FAIR has been annually held at YARNBURY-CASTLE, in the County of Wilts, on the twenty-third and twenty-fourth Days of September; This is to give Notice, That according to the Alteration of the Stile, the faid Fair will, for the future, be held on the fourth and fifth Days of October.”