Every year on 5 December, Old Style, the feast of St Catharine, a fair was held on the north side of the chapel-yard in Eskdale. Corn, drapery, hardware, woollen yarn, hats and sheepskins were brought for sale. Hutchinson added that wakes and doles were customary in the dale, that weddings, christenings and funerals drew up to a hundred neighbours, and that the favourite sports were hunting and cock-fighting.
St Catharine’s fair in Eskdale chapel-yard
5 December · Eskdale, Cumberland
No longer kept
On the 5th day of December, O. S. yearly, being the feast of St. Catharine, a fair is held on the north side of the chapel-yard
From Hutchinson's History of Cumberland, vol. 1, p. 579. Read the original
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