St Etheldreda, or Audrey, founder of the abbey at Ely, was remembered on 17 October, and a fair called St Audrey’s fair was held at Ely. Cheap, showy lace and necklaces sold there to country girls became known as St Audrey’s lace, or tawdry lace. Both Hone and Chambers trace the word tawdry, meaning cheap finery, to this fair.
St Audrey’s Fair and Tawdry Lace
17 October · Ely, Cambridgeshire
No longer kept
At the fair of St Audry, at Ely, in former times, toys of all sorts were sold, and a description of cheap necklaces, which, under the denomination of tawdry laces, long enjoyed great celebrity.
From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 459; Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 1, col. 1383. Read the original
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