PAIGNTON FAIR.
June.]
PAIGNTON FAIR.
Devonshire.
A correspondent of N. & Q. (1st S. vol. viii. p. 66) quotes from an old newspaper (June 7th, 1809) the following account of Paignton Fair, held at Exeter. At this fair, says the writer, the ancient custom of drawing through the town a plum-pudding of immense size, and afterwards of distributing it to the populace, was revived on Tuesday last. The ingredients which composed this enormous pudding were—four hundred pounds of flour, one hundred and seventy pounds of beef suet, one hundred and forty pounds of raisins, and two hundred and forty eggs. It was kept constantly boiling in a brewer’s copper from Saturday morning to the Tuesday following, when it was placed on a car, decorated with ribbons, evergreens, &c., and drawn along the streets by eight oxen.