Victorian Winchester – a military hub with fairs galore

Victorian Winchester – a military hub with fairs galore

Barry Shurlock presents another excerpt from a memoir submitted to the Chronicle in 1908 by a Winchester journalist on a rival paper, and discovered 25 years ago ‘at the bottom of an old filing cabinet’.

THE reminiscences of Henry (‘Harry’) Moody Junior (1840-1921) were only jottings, but they have the virtue of recording what the ‘ordinary person’ experienced in Winchester in the second half of the nineteenth century.

He was a printer cum reporter on the Hampshire Observer, then a rival to the Chronicle, and was no doubt influenced by his namesake father. He wrote popular works on local history and was curator of Winchester’s first museum, but unfortunately after many years had to resign for selling items from its collection.

As the military museums in Winchester highlight, the city once thronged with soldiers. In the eighteenth century there were Militia or Hessian camps on Barton Farm, alongside Winnall Down Farm and to the north of Stanmore.

In the nineteenth century, Peninsular Barracks– a relic of Charles II’s unfinished palace and now a residential site – became the home of The King’s Royal Rifle Corps and The Rifle Brigade. Moody obviously took a great interest in military matters and even served as a volunteer. But, oddly, he made no mention of the catastrophic fire in 1894 that destroyed the barracks.

LIFE, as I remember in the barracks was not a very enchanting one. A man was hooked with the shilling, but repentance immediately after cost him £1, and £20 would not often purchase his release subsequently.

Opportunities for desertion were but few – he could not go outside a mile radius round the city. And the penalty of desertion was harsh – the ‘cat’ and being ‘branded’ with the letter ‘D’.

The rules of the service induced those endowed with little authority to show it arbitrarily, and I witnessed more than once men marched off to the guardroom to answer later on a charge of insubordination for what was only a word of explanation.

Yet, these are the men, of whom some are with us still, who fought our battles in the Crimea and in the Indian Mutiny. In that day drums and fifes were attached to every regiment, and were used for the ‘calls’ of the day, though the hours were struck on a gong standing outside the main guardroom.

This reminds me that when the London Guards were here for a few weeks each summer their practice was to hire clocks (8-day American square-faced) supplied by a watchmaker who included weekly winding in the hire.

Usually more than one regiment lay in the Barracks at the same time, not always however in terms of amity, but in frequent quarrels. One notable instance presented a somewhat serious aspect, the fights between the 88 Regiment (Connaught Rangers) and the North Hants Militia, then recently raised.

The former were soon shifted to another station, a method often adopted. We ridiculed the Brodrick hat [like a Matelot’s] of these days, but the coat of the North Hants Militiaman – a ‘swallow tail’ not long enough for him to be seated upon – brought insults upon him from all directions.

Of the officers I might say I never saw anything approaching harshness in demeanour when visiting the barrack room. Indeed, there were some who spoke freely and kindly to the men, of their own company even giving something tangible.

Then there were the Volunteers, whose attention was first called by a bugle call about the streets by the late Bugler J.E. Brown. How quick the citizens resounded to the call and proceeded to be sworn in at the private residence, in Hyde Street, of the late Colonel [Thomas] Faunce.

But we soon found that we were moving too fast. We chose our own uniform – rifle-green with cock’s plume on shako [tall cylindrical hat], and patent leather belts - but the late Marquis of Winchester interposed, to the general regret, and clothed us in grey with green facings, baggy trousers with green piping, refusing altogether to allow a plume and fitted us with a Frenchified cap.

Then came the days of drill at the Corn Exchange under Sergt. Worrell and other riflemen from the Barracks. We moved apace with enthusiasm with judging distance, drill and rifle practice on Teg Down. The piecing of the intricate parts of the rifle together and the trajectory course of the rifle bullet was explained to us at the barracks, the military lending ready assistance on all hands to the civilian soldier.

As we advanced in military knowledge, we had shooting competitions till a great occasion, our ‘field day’ on Compton Down, after which we were sumptuously entertained at the White Swan Hotel by [W. Barrow] Simonds Esq. [1820-1911] our Captain Commandant, and shortly after my military career ended, my [temporarily] leaving the town.

I now will recall a thing that is of the past almost – I allude to the Fairs, the largest, but the first to die out being Magdalen (Morn) Hill Fair. It was held on the down hard by the first milestone, on the 2nd of August and following day.

The erection of the white-covered drinking booths and standings [stalls] as viewed from the town excited general interest and speculation relative to its size. There were a few lots of cheese pitched, some horses and implements of wood used on the farm.

Music and dancing were an adjunct to the drinking in the booths. Gingerbread nuts from the standings were a necessary purchase to carry home. Gambling, or what is now illegal in the way of chance, was one of the many pleasures of the fair. Sparring booths found many votaries. Cheap-Jacks with their patter and cheap articles, pulled in the money.

One genuine attraction which drew many to the fair (a distance of 1 3/4 miles from the Butter Cross says the stone) was the annual visit of [Bostock and Wombwell’s] Menagerie. Country people from the surrounding districts came by waggon, though their attendance varied with the harvest, wheat cutting commencing, if ready, on Fair Day.

At this, the piece de resistance was pickled salmon. Oysters were also sold widely, especially at Morn Hill Fair for three a penny. This bivalve now seems ‘extinct’, the rough shell being about the size of one’s palm, and its contents a good mouthful to swallow.

Then there was St Giles Hill Fair, with Hot Roast Pork [to mark] the opening of the pork season. This fairground was of limited area extending from the rear of High House [alongside Baring Road] up to the present Waterworks [at intersection of Northbrook Avenue and Quarry Road]. Cheese was the chief commodity offered and but a small pitch. You had to literally crawl up the centre of the hill or enter at the Quarry Road end. The attendance was purely local and in this case the military were in evidence.

Sheep Fair, October 23rd, was held in Oram’s Arbour, then of much larger extent than now, sheep and cattle filling its whole extent. The Town, or Pleasure Fair was in the High Street on the following day. A considerable amount of cheese was pitched in the Broadway in the ‘40ties as well as onions, carrots and other garden produce. There were other pitches of the latter between Jewry Street and Southgate St. The gingerbread stalls extended the north side of the High St to Jewry Street, and ‘Greens’ from Landport, Portsea or Gosport with few exceptions were their proprietors.

Seed or Lent Fair, then held on the First Saturday in Lent, was much similar and many garden seeds were sold there by seedsmen and nurserymen.  The chief ‘torment’ at fairs were ‘crackers’, composed of fine gravel wrapped in thin paper going off like a gun cap, and very dangerous to anyone struck.

To be continued. This is an edited version of excerpts from a 34-page manuscript held by the Hampshire Record Office (3A00W/I6).

CAPTIONS

The barracks in 1811, formerly the King’s House [Ed: please crop top and bottom]

Recruiting poster for North Hants Militia. Image: Hampshire Record Office

Connaught Rangers, the 88th and 94th Foot, by Richard Simkin. Image: Wikipedia

William Barrow Simonds (1820-1911), sometime Winchester’s MP and Captain of the 1st Hampshire Volunteers. Image: Hampshire Record Office

An iron for branding military deserters with a ‘D’. Image: Wellcome Collection

ENDS