In the early 1900s the fair at Yarm was famous for cheese trading and livestock sales, but these days it is mostly a funfair. This photograph c1900 shows the hustle and bustle of the fair which is held annually every October and is still a focus in the calendar for travellers today. We believe the fair was established in 1214.
I think that it’s a long time since Bob Wilson visited Yarm, during the October ‘Fair’ week and observed just how many businesses are closed at that time, particularly those that rely on evening trade such as restaurants. The pubs and bars also suffer, mainly because even taxis cannot gain access to the High Street after 6:00pm and especially as the largest groups of attendees to the funfair are either 12-18yr olds, or parents with young children. The scene pictured above, is essentially that of a traditional ‘market’ where goods, livestock and foodstuffs were sold. Substituting ‘cheap-thrills’, candy floss, loud music and diesel-fumes without any benefit whatsoever to the town-traders, or residents of the High Street, can hardly justify the ‘funfair’s’ continuance. Just like Yarm’s shipping-trade, the skin-yards, and the vinegar-factory, it’s time has now surely come?
Maybe, and it’s only a suggestion mind you, the shop keepers choose October as the best month for them to get away, end of summer and before winters sets in? Yarms shipping trade was destroyed by the erection of the Stockton and Thornaby Victoria Bridge 1908? being too low to allow large ships through, the Skin Yard was in some rickety old buildings down on the Yarm river bank with very poor access, large trucks had a tough time getting to them, and as for the Vinegar Works it was closed before circa 1953 because my father and I painted and repaired it’s roof then. We need the old fairs, we need to retain our traditions.
Yarm 4 day Fair is held just once a year, it’s closed during the day, and the only problem caused to high street traders is the loss of free parking spaces which are occupied by the funfair amusements run by the descendants of Mr Sam Crow and his son Billy Crow and family.
During fair week the shop trade still carries on and most people find somewhere to park. After 5.00pm the fair begins to open and get busy allowing other high street business to flourish, meaning the pubs, restaurants and takeaways, for these traders fair week is the busiest time of the year. Whilst Yarm is an attractive small town it was when all’s said and done the former main route to the A19 south from Stockton, but since the Teesside motorway network was built Yarm famous traffic jams are things of the past. If it was not for the popular fair most of us would not visit Yarm at all. If anyone wants to sell cheese or eggs there, I’m quite certain the Crow family would find space for them.
Given a choice, most residents and traders in Yarm would without doubt, now vote for the ‘funfair’ to be disbanded, or moved to Preston Park. As the caption states, this was for centuries a highlight in the North of England agricultural and stock-breeding calendar, where real ‘trade’ took place in terms of livestock sales and the huge amount of cheese, a product the sale of which alone, was estimated at some 500 tons each October. All this activity over the 4-days of the Fair would certainly bring a lot of business to the town-based traders and it’s one time 13 public-houses. Unlike today, when many shops, restaurants and bars simply close their businesses, as a result of the the High Street being blocked to thru-traffic and the cobbled parking areas all taken up by rides, stalls and ‘travellers’ caravans. In a new age of high rents, council-taxes and deepening recession, how long can the present-day traders of Yarm afford to lose nearly a weeks income due to a tradition, that long ago lost it’s true purpose?