1246 Markets & Fairs in Atherstone

Atherstone still holds a weekly market today and has done so for nearly 800 years.

By Hugh Lupus the manor was bestowed on the monks of Bec in Normandy, who obtained by charter from Henry III in 1246 and 1247 a yearly fair, to last three days, beginning on the eve of the nativity of the blessed Virgin (the nativity being on the 8th September), and a market weekly on Tuesday. The market increased very much, from its convenient situation.

‘The Penny Cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge’ by C. Knight, published in 1843.

The monks procured a weekly market and a yearly fair; and to their patronage the town appears indebted for its first steps towards prosperoty. The market, when once established, rapidly augmented in traffic;

The Beauties of England and Wales. By J. Britton, J. Norris Brewer, Rev. J. Hodgson, and F. C. Laird. Published 1814

It was given at the Conquest to the monks of Bec in Normandy; who obtained for it the right of a market and an annual fair….(In 1870)The market house stands on pillars, and has a spacious assembly-room above. The corn exchange is large and recent…A weekly market is held on Tuesday; and fairs, in Feb., April, June, Aug., Oct., and Dec. The manufacture of ribbons, hats, and shalloons is carried on; and a considerable traffic from neighbouring quarries and coalmines exists.

Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales, John Marius Wilson (1870-72).

In the reign of Henry III. it passed to the monks of Bec in Normandy, who in 1246 obtained the grant of an annual fair at the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, and the next year of a market every Tuesday. This market became so much frequented that in 1319 a toll was levied upon all goods coming into the town, in order to defray the cost of the repair to the roads necessitated by the constant traffic, and in 1332 a similar toll was levied on all goods passing over the bridge called Feldenbrigge near Atherstone. The September fair and Tuesday markets are still continued (in 1911).

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2. 1911

The number of annual fairs in Atherstone grew as the town became more prosperous.

April 7, for horses, cows. and sheep.
July 18, a holiday fair only.
Sept. 19, for horses, cows, and considerable for cheese.
Dec. 4, for horses and great numbers of fat cattle.

Essays on the Management of the Dairy: Including the Modern Practice of the Best Districts in the manufacture of cheese and butter. Josiah Twamley, 1816.

Atherstone Cheese Fair

Daniel Defoe (1659/1661 [?] – April 24 [?], 1731)[1] was an English writer, journalist and spy, who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest practitioners of the novel and helped popularize the genre in Britain.

Wikipedia - Daniel Defoe

Like all good writers Daniel Defoe also had something to say about Atherstone.

…and then to Atherstone, a town famous for a great cheese fair on the 8th of September; from whence the great cheese factors carry the vast quantities of cheese they buy to Sturbridge Fair, which begins about the same time, but holds much longer; and here ’tis sold again for the supply of the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk.

Letter 7, Part 2: East Midlands
A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies.
Three volume work published between 1724 - 1726 Daniel Defoe

By the way we visited some friends at a market-town, a little out of the road, call’d Chipping-Sodbury, a place of note for nothing that I saw, but the greatest cheese market in all that part of England; or, perhaps, any other, except Atherstone, in Warwickshire.

Letter 6, Part 2: Oxford, Bristol and Gloucester
A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies.
Three volume work published between 1724 - 1726 Daniel Defoe

There is still some physical evidence for Atherstone’s cheesey past around today.

The farmhouse was designed as a cheese – making dwelling in the mid eighteenth century. The farm house attic was the cheese resting store where the beams supported many shelves for the cheeses, and the ground floor at the rear of the house was where the cheese – making operation was carried out. The solid stone cheese press can still be seen in the stable yard today.

Mythe Farm House Bed and Breakfast - Atherstone, Warwickshire, Midlands. Fair usage in promotion of Mythe Farm House Bed and Breakfast.