Wellington Midsummer Fayre 2023

The next Fayre will take place on Saturday 10th June 2023. We’ll have a packed programme – singers, bands, choirs, dancers, and a costumed procession modelled on one first recorded in 1773! The programme is still in development, but watch this space for details.

ABOUT THE MIDSUMMER FAYRE

The Midsummer Fayre is a fire-eating, foot-tapping, feel-good spectacular that usually takes place annually on the second Saturday in June, 10am – 3pm around Wellington’s Market Square, All Saints Church and Market Hall. Organised by Wellington H2A and All Saints Church, it is funded with support from Wellington Town Council and local businesses, and sees thousands of people coming out to enjoy the town. With around 40 stalls set up outside the parish church, music and dancing throughout the day and a costumed procession first recorded in 1773, its a day no Wellingtonian should miss.

BOOKING A STALL

Updated 23rd February 2023: Stall booking has been open for less than a week and already we have very few spaces remaining!

We currently have 9 spaces remaining for commercial stalls. We prioritise independent businesses and locally-made products. If you would like to enquire about having a stall please email threeniceslices@hotmail.com detailing your name, business name and product type. Traders need to bring their own gazebo (3m x 3m max), table and any chairs needed.

We have NO charity and community group spaces remaining. Apologies if you were hoping to reserve one, but demand has been very high!

BECOMING AN EVENT SPONSOR

In 2022 we were very grateful to Anthony’s of Wellington Butchery and Farm Shop, DB Roberts Estate Agents and ChadStone Accountants for being our event sponsors. If your business would like to be one of our sponsors for 2023, get in touch.

£500 will get you the following:

  • a full page advert on the reverse of our event programme (c.3000 hard copies printed plus online PDF shared widely online)
  • article and photo of you on the H2A website
  • mentions in our press releases before and after the event
  • mentions via our Facebook and Twitter accounts (combined followership of 1,500) and on Love Wellington (8,400 followers)
  • a 3m x 3m stall space at the event where you can display banners, hand out literature etc.

£250 will get you the following:

  • a third of a page advert in our event programme (c.3000 hard copies printed plus online PDF shared widely)
  • article and photo of you on the H2A website
  • mentions in our press releases before and after the event
  • mentions via our Facebook and Twitter accounts (combined followership of 1,500) and on Love Wellington (8,400 followers)
  • a 3m x 3m stall space at the event where you can display banners, hand out literature etc.

PHOTO GALLERY: PICTURES FROM PAST FAYRES SINCE 2008

These photos from past events will give you an idea of what the whole thing is about…

Morris men in Market Square
Picnic time
Wellington Weekend 2010 050
Wellington Weekend 2010 057
Morris dancers in the Square
Morris dancers
Vic et al
duke street procession
Cooper's Sausage Rolls

Origins

June fayres were taking place in Wellington at least as far back as the 13th century, when the town’s Market Charter of 1244 sanctioned a fayre to take place on the Vigil, Feast and Morrow of St Barnabas (10th-12th June). An important commercial event in Wellington’s calendar, it is likely that street entertainers would have been there to make the most of the large crowds and long hours of daylight – just as they are today.

Five hundred years later in the 1770s, the June fayres were still taking place, but the town’s most colourful annual celebration seems to have been the Wellington Jubilee. This was staged slightly earlier in the year at Whitsun, and was advertised in the newly established Shrewsbury Chronicle newspaper from 1773 – 78. Described then as an ‘ancient festival’, it perhaps dated back much further. It comprised ‘a breakfast of tea, coffee and chocolate’ on The Green (the area just north of the parish church), followed by a costumed procession through town and, at night, a ‘Ball and Assembly’.

It is from these past fayres and Jubilees that today’s re-vived Midsummer Fayre takes its inspiration, stirring together six centuries of festivities and folk culture from the 13th to the 19th centuries, when Wellington’s June fayres disappeared.