Annotation:Croydon Fair (1)
X:1 T:Croydon Fair [1] M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Country Dance Tune B:London Magazine: or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer, June 1756 (p. 293) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:D DFA d2f|ecA BdB|AFD G2B|AFD EGE| DFA d2e|fdB ecA|dfa cea|dcB A3:| |:Ace Ace|EFG FED|Bdf Bdf|BAG F2E| DdA FDF|GdB GDF|GBd FAd|GFE D3:|
CROYDON FAIR [1]. AKA and see "Kriden Fair." English, Country Dance Tune and Jig (6/8 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Croydon Fair" is a jig and country dance that was first printed in Richard Baldwin's periodical London Magazine, Or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer of June, 1756 (p. 293). Croydon was a town south of London that developed into one of the main market towns of north east Surrey. It is now part of Greater London. According to Thomas Frost[1]:
Croydon Fair dated from 1276, when the interest of Archbishop Kilwardby obtained for the town the right of holding a fair during nine days, beginning on the vigil of St. Botolph, that is, on the 16th of May. In 1314, Archbishop Reynolds obtained for the town a similar grant for a fair on the vigil and morrow of St. Matthew’s day; and in 1343, Archbishop Stratford obtained a grant of a fair on the feast of St. John the Baptist. The earliest of these fairs was the first to sink into insignificance; but the others survived to a very recent period in the sheep and cattle fair, held in latter times on the 2nd of October and the two following days, and the cherry fair, held on the 5th[Pg 7] of July and the two following days. Whatever may have been the relative importance of these fairs in former times, the former, though held at the least genial season, was, for at least a century before it was discontinued, the most considerable fair in the neighbourhood of the metropolis; while the July fair lost the advantage of being held in the summer, through the contracted limits within which its component parts were pitched. These were the streets between High Street and Surrey Street, and included the latter, formerly called Butcher Row; and the only space large enough for anything of dimensions exceeding those of a stall for the sale of toys or gingerbread, was that at the back of the Corn Market, on which the cattle-market was formerly held.
The ‘Fair Field’ was Croydon’s historic venue for entertainment and social activity, hosting fairs, markets and performances until the arrival of the railways in the 1860s.
Northumbrian musician William Vickers entered the tune in his 1770 music manuscript collection as "Kriden Fair."
- ↑ Thomas Frost, The Old Showmen, and the Old London Fairs, London, 1875; pp. 6-7.