426 



Ciiii pill J[iur. 



By T. Stoey-Maskelyne. 



EvBUY year on tlie 6th of August, the great fair of Tan Hill is 

 held, near Devizes, on the highest part of the Wiltshire downs. 

 At this point the downs rise to a height of 958ft. above the sea 

 level, dominating all the surrounding country, and it must strike 

 all who have visited this spot that this is a remarkable place to 

 have been chosen for a fair. 



A fair is generally held at a place rendered easily accessible by 

 means of good roads or water ways. But people coming to Tan 

 Hill must turn tlieir backs on the hard road and follow tracks 

 over the downs, which are not used at other times of the year, 

 tracks supposed to be ancient British ways ^ leading from near 

 Avebury on the north and from the Stonehenge downs on the 

 south. These are very different surroundings from those of most 

 other great fairs. 



The name of this place, Tan (Celtic for fire), and the date on 

 which the fair is held (August 6th) both suggest a reason why so 

 remote and so desolate a spot should have been used for a fair. 

 Such a place could never have been originally chosen merely for 

 this purpose. " The first fairs were formed by the gathering of 

 worshippers and pilgrims about sacred places " ^ and " many fairs 

 whose origin is lost in antiquity (as is that of Tan Hill) can be 

 traced more or less distinctly to a religious source and were records 

 of a time when the primitive inhabitants of the land were Sun 

 worshippers." ^ 



' For instance, Weal-a-wege, i.e., Welsh way, an old British way — described 

 by Canon Jones under Alton Priors in Domesday for Wiltshire (Cod. dip!., 

 1035 or 1070) — is now named "Walker's Hill " in maps! 

 - Walford, Fairs, past and present. 

 ^ See Wilts Notes and Queries, No. 3. 



