Known as the Green Goose fair, it was held on the Thursday after Pentecost. A green goose was a young or mid-summer goose, and also a slang term for a cuckold or a low woman. In 1630, John Taylor, a poet wrote 'At Bow, the Thursday after Pentecost, there is a fair of green geese ready rost, where, as a goose is ever dog cheap there, the sauce is over somewhat sharp and deare', which used the double entendre to describe the drunken and rowdy behaviour of the crowds. By the mid-19th century, the authorities had had enough and the fair was suppressed.
Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk
