Events

Except when flooded, Gloucester's meadows are excellent places for crowds to gather. They have hosted everyone from ordinary citizens to armies and Kings of England. Grand pageants, fairs, sports, too many events to even count.
Mop Fairs, Barton Fairs, Funfairs and the Gloucester Races

Every year until 1839 horses raced on the meadows by Over Bridge. The Gloucester Races were revived in 1861, 1862 and again in 1870 held on the Meanham, just north of the railway line. The local paper boasted that the course was "admitted by all sporting men to be superior to Cheltenham's". Besides the racing there were drinking and food booths, dancers, musicians, boxers and acrobats, merry-go-rounds and velocipede circuses, fairground attractions such as Aunt Sally and thimble rigging stalls and all manner of boisterous activities. Perhaps this is why the Races were not held very often. Campaigners harangued the crowds and handed out leaflets warning of the dangers of gambling and drinking while extra police and plain-clothes detectives were called in from Bristol and Birmingham. Betting was banned but not stopped. One unfortunate losing punter was thrown into a ditch for not paying up.

Just as lively was the annual Barton Fair. Although held in Barton Street since the 15th Century, the fair had to be transferred to the Oxlease in 1904 to avoid the wires and rails for the City's brand new electric trams. The main Fair was about buying and selling sheep and horses, up to 10,000 at a time! The Mop Fair always followed. Originally for hiring farm workers, by the 1900s this had become a funfair and a highlight of Gloucester's year.