After the calendar change Bartholomew Fair, the only fair left in the City of London, was proclaimed on 3 September. The Lord Mayor drove in state from the Mansion House to Smithfield, where his attorney read the proclamation at the gate into Cloth Fair and a sheriff’s officer repeated it after him. The procession went round Smithfield and home again, and it had once been the custom to stop at Newgate to drink the governor’s health. The fair itself was abolished in 1855.
Proclaiming Bartholomew Fair
3 September · Smithfield, London
No longer kept
The proclamation is read at the gate leading into Cloth-fair by the lord mayor's attorney, and repeated after him by a sheriff's officer
From Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 1, cols. 1166-1167. Read the original
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