Event   

Bow Fair

Categories: Commerce

Event

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

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Bow Fair

Commemorated ati

Bow Fair Field

Bow Fair Field Site of the annual Whitsun fair stopped in 1823 due to rowdyis...

Read More

Other Subjects

Ernest Eugene Pither

Ernest Eugene Pither

Art dealer and importer as "E. E. Pither and Sons". 1881 "Commission Agent" living with his mother and brother.  1882-99 operated out of various addresses in the area including 53 and 38 Mortimer S...

Person, Art, Commerce

1 memorial
Grice's Granary

Grice's Granary

A Grade II listed building, built around 1780 and extended during the following two centuries. It contains some 200-year-old beams which were originally parts of ships. The building now houses Sand...

Building, Commerce

1 memorial
Sir Albert Levy

Sir Albert Levy

Founder of the Ardath Tobacco Company.  Honorary Treasurer at the Royal Free Hospital in 1926. See Lord Riddell.  Also helped fund the 1928 new extension for which the maternity section was named t...

Person, Commerce, Philanthropy, Germany

1 memorial
Wimbledon Village Association

Wimbledon Village Association

From This is Local London: "A new Wimbledon Village Association had been a major contributor to the scheme and had held its first annual general meeting in October 1963." It's possible that over t...

Group, Commerce, Community / Clubs

1 memorial
Metropolitan Water Board

Metropolitan Water Board

Taken over by Thames Water.

Group, Commerce, Engineering

1 memorial