LEGAL BATTLE OVER VILLAGE FAIR

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29910, 25 August 1962, Page 8

LEGAL BATTLE OVER VILLAGE FAIR

Wraysbury Asserts Ancient Rights

(Special!!/ written for “The Press" by MAUREEN EPPSTEIN]

LONDON, July 12. IN the shade of ancient oaks and chestnuts, where the sweet scent of hay rises from the scythed grass, the sounds of the fair blare out from merry-go-rounds and coconut shies. Across the green, starry with clumps of white daisies, tents and stalls are filled with people inspecting plants, basketwork, and local works of art, or watching a potter at his wheel, or quaffing ales in the refreshment tent.

Wrestlers, fencers and gymnasts display their skills, and a model train, ponies and donkeys give rides across the green to excited children. The soft fluff of dandelion seeds fill the air, and above the trees dozens of swirling balloons make patterns against the warm summer sky. Pretty girls in long skirts, frilly white blouses and straw bonnets are selling programmes.

This is an English country fair—but one with a difference. It is an act of defiance by a village threatened with destruction, a selfconsciously archaic revival of an ancient right and custom against the encroachments of suburban London. Its background is a feud that has split the village in two. Wraysbury, Bucks., was a flourishing village when the Domesday Book was written, and inside its parish boundaries. on an island in the Thames, Magna Carta was signed by King John. Now overhead the whine of airliners rising from London airport vies for attention with the swooping and twittering swallows. All round the village the tentacles of London’s urban sprawl show themselves in rows of smart modern houses. Closer and closer to the village the heavy, machinery of the gravel merchants turns this swampy land on the north banks of the Thames into untidy pools and mounds of gravel. Old Manor Farm Now the old manor farm, a relic of feudal times, with its thatched barns and ancient cottages, is to go under the hammer. Most of the farm will be broken up —“for building development and gravel extraction.” Most of this change has been taken philosophically by the residents of Wraysbury. many of whom have themselves come to the village from the crowded heart of Lsndon. But three years ago a crisis developed. A building speculator who had bought part of what was once the village green, asked the villagers to waive their rights to this patch of land. “What rights?” the villagers asked. They discovered that when the great enclosures had taken place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a private Act of Parliament had in 1803 safeguarded to the use of the villagers certain footpaths down to and along the banks of the Colne Brook, which runs through the village, and also th? right to hold, on the Friday afternon after Whit-Sunday. the ancient and traditional fair on the village green. This green is now in three sections, one of which was bought by public subscription for the village. Another sectiofi was brought by the local tennis club, and the third by the building speculator.

The speculator’s plot, and his request, was insignificant in itself, but the villagers believed that a major principle was at stake, particularly as a gravel contractor had at the same time asked for a waiving of rights on one of the old footpaths, in order to extend his gravel extracting operations.

The villagers’ main concem was their remaining

village green. If they were to give way in the two present cases, they felt that the Act which safeguarded their rights would be. undermined, and they would have no means of defending what was left. When the matter was first broached, friends of the builder called a public meeting of the residents, who rejected the request by about 300 votes to 10. The builder decided, however, to continue his scheme. His opponents formed a residents’ association to protect their rights, accused the parish council of complicity, stupidity, or both, and applied to the court for an injunction to restrain the builder. On the other side were ranged the parish council, half of whom were replaced by the association’s nominees at the next election, and those builders who were interested in property development, and who considered that the opposition were obstructing legitimate progress. While the case was being decided, the association determined to revive the traditional fair, which had not been held for 50 years The fair itself, like most English country fairs, is a relic of pagan times, when it was a feast to honour gods and heroes. With the coming of Christianity the custom was adapted to a wake, or all-night vigil, which the parishioners spent in the church. It was followed the next day by eating and drinking and rural games.

Court’s Decision The wakes, which had by that time become very riotous affairs, were stopped by Henry VIII. Charles I revived the old custom, but took the precaution of ordering that his Justices of the Peace should be responsible for preventing any disorders. By this time the religious aspect of the feast had become of secondary importance, and hawkers and peddlers of merchandise of all descriptions began to put in an appearance.

But the right to hold a fair was still held so sacred that, even through the great enclosures of agrarian revolution, it was preserved to the village on the remnants of the common land. It was this right that the villagers of Wraysbury were defending They do not see their fair as a sacred feast, but rather as a symbol of their right tn keep a beautiful patch of ground for their, and their children’s, recreation.

They explained it in their programme which described the purpose of the fair:

“In these days of giant squid development corporations and almost omnipotent local authorities, it is by no means impossible that what the Act of 1803 salvaged from the ruins of the old manorial system might yet get mislaid and turn up in somebody's back yard." Now the village green of Wraysbury has been reprieved. The Court of Appeal has today ruled that the ancient right, although long disused, still exists. Tonight the villagers are celebrating their victory over the tentacles of London’s urban sprawl.