Frome in Wessex
Frome Events: Annual Events in Frome’s Calendar
Abstract
Contents Updated: Thursday, 26 October 2006
The Catherine Hill Medieval Fair
The steep and slightly twisting Catherine Hill leading out of the Upper Market by way of Stony Street used to be one of Frome’s main shopping streets. But fashions and technology—even of shopping—change and Catherine Hill has declined quite quickly. In 1995 60% of the shops were boarded up. The specific reason has been the weakness of Frome as a shopping town compared with the nearby Wiltshire towns and the trend for town edge shopping in purpose built hypermarkets like Sainsbury’s. All that combined with the reluctance of today’s shoppers to walk up the steep hill and the lack of adequate free parking has meant a singular decline.
The street is named after the medieval chantry chapel of St Katherine which was founded before 1279 AD. Number 13 Catherine Hill has signs of a medieval origin and seems to have been largely demolished in the sixteenth century probably because of the dissolution of the chantry in 1548 AD. It is likely that the chapel was where numbers 14 and 15 now stand.
A plan started in 1994 to attempt to revitalise the Hill depended upon Frome’s talent for unusual crafts. Shops were offered at favourable terms at the lower end of Catherine Hill whilst allowing others further up the Hill to revert to private housing. Shops devoted to arts, crafts and antiques have opened reducing vacancy rates to 30% but some still find it hard to continue when the favourable terms expire after a year.
Despite the problems, the shopkeepers and occupiers of Catherine Hill have supported the annual Medieval Fair Day for a couple of decades now and it remains a popular attraction in the annual calendar, despite the reduction in the shops.
Sites for stalls are allocated all the way up the Hill and in Palmer Street and the forecourt of St John’s Church. Traders book them and lay out their wares. Those who have shops will put out examples of what they sell normally or might take the chance to get rid of something they have had in stock for too long. Others set up stalls showing their garden produce, their hobbies, crafts, food produce and so on. A site is provided for a stage on which bands play at intervals throughout the day. Street entertainers, stick-walkers, jugglers, Morris dancers and musicians wander the streets entertaining the crowds and the Sun Inn, at the centre of the length of Catherine Hill and Catherine Street acts as a focus and a place to assuage your thirst.
But the real character of the fair is that it is all done in medieval fancy dress. The stall holders are expected to dress up and most do, but so do most of the street entertainers and even some of the visitors. Some of the costumes are stunning and others are simple but all are meant to be like those worn in the Middle Ages.
Anyone in the area in the Middle of August should find out when the medieval fair is and try to attend. Usually it is about the third Saturday in August. Sadly, in the last few years, the fair has been cancelled for reasons of insurance and other organizational problems.
Frome Cheese Show
Though the Frome Cheese Show does not have a continuous history, 
it is descended from a fair held in Frome in 1785 AD and that stems from shows which have an even longer history. It was held in the Market Place and surrounding streets including Bath Street when it opened. Frome was the largest of all the Cheese Fairs and hundreds of tons of cheese were traded from all over the area.
In 1874 the Market Hall was built by local farmers and was the venue of the Cheese Show for a long time, exhibitors taking stands in the hall or the ajoining Cattle Market Yard, now the car park, or even over a specially built wooden bridge in the Singer’s factory. One year the bridge collapsed throwing everyone into the river. In 1921 the Cricket Ground was bought and later the whole of the nearby Showground, now called Fromefield, which is leased to Mendip District Council for the whole year except for the week of the show.
Today the show is held on the third Wednesday in September and is really a small version of the Bath and West Show. There are many categories of competition. Besides cheese, mainly Cheddar, butter, eggs, poultry, goats, sheep, dairy and beef cattle, horses from carthorses to ponies and dogs. There are also showjumping events, carriage driving and wagons. A tent for young children to see and stroke young animals is also a feature.
For those of a more herbivorous bent there are classes for grain and fodder, horticulture and flower arrangements as well as floral trades. Then there are homecrafts, needlework, art and photography
In the aisles of stands outside the showtents are crafts sellers, combine harvesters, gardeners, spice sellers, household goods traders, insurance companies and endless varieties of foodstalls. For liquid refreshment there is usually a beer tent and cider makers might well have their own stands. Others can find sustenance in the Cricket Club House or the nearby Vine Tree pub, among the most pleasant in Frome (and it really has a vine tree!).
The Cheese Show always attracts good crowds not least because the price of entrance is not an arm and a leg. It is the place where everyone takes their children and meet people they might not otherwise meet. A really pleasant day out. Try to get there some time.
Frome Carnival
When the Frome Cheese Show is over the next item on the Frome calendar in the third week of September is the Carnival.
The Carnival is a relatively recent innovation, going only back to 1927. In those days local workpeople would visit Bristol for the "Rag Week" when young people put on shows and stunts to raise money for charity. A group of people planning to go to Bristol for this event considered holding a similar charitable event in Frome. And so they did, making a profit of £50 which went to the local hospital and nurses.
Two years later it was decided to broaden the appeal and call the programme, Carnival. Full of ambition, they decided to auction an Austin 7 motor car, the model T Ford of the UK, and set about raising the £115 needed after Austin offered to donate £25 towards the true cost of £140 themselves. The money was raised, the event held and made a profit of over £900, quite a remarkable sum for the time.
The Carnival quickly became established. In 1932 Lord John Sanger’s Circus allowed one of their elephants to join the parade. The War against the Nazis caused its suspension until 1945 but it has continued uninterrupted since. In the 60s and 70s Frome produced a Carnival newspaper, the Frome Rumour, on the lines of a Rag Mag. Latterly the Frome Rotary Club has undertaken to organise the event and arrange the programme of events for the two Carnival queens.
