In Baker’s “History of Northamptonshire” the following poem appears relative to the fair—
“From every part stretched o’er the sultry way,
The labouring team the various stores convey.
Vessels of wood and brass, all bright and new,
In merry mixture rise upon the view.
See! pots capacious lesser pots entomb,
And hogsheads barrels gorge for want of room;
From their broad base part in each other hid
The lessening tubs shoot up like a pyramid.
Pitchforks and axes and the deepening spade
Beneath the pressing load are harmless laid;
Whilst out behind, where pliant poles prevail,
The merry waggon seems to wag her tail.”
Looked at from rising ground, far in the distance and with a keen sense for the picturesque and romantic, the moral and physical aspects of nature, and love of liberty, which gipsy life presents to those few unacquainted with its dark, degrading side—thank God, only a few—are food for admiration and wonder; to others the objects of pity and suggestive reflection. There can be no doubt that Cowper, the immortal poet, who lived at Olney, a few miles from Boughton Green and Higham Ferrers, as he was wont to take his daily walks, would often cross the path of the Northamptonshire gipsies. Sometimes there would accompany him his two lady friends who were jealous of each other’s influence—Lady Austin and Mrs. Unwin. Occasionally Lady Hesketh and some of the Throckmortons would be the cheerful companions in his despondency and gloom, and at other times he would sally forth single-handed in quest of food for his hares and leverets, in silent meditation upon the grand and beautiful surroundings. It is more than probable that while he saw from the beautiful elevation, a few miles outside Olney and Weston, the grey smoke rising from the gipsy encampment in the distance silently and quietly whirling, twirling, and ascending among the trees, to be lost among the daisies and hedgerows, the muses danced before him and brought forth the truthful, characteristic poem relating to gipsies—
“I see a column of slow rising smoke
O’ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild.
A vagabond and useless tribe there eat
Their miserable meal. A kettle
Slung between two poles, upon a stick transverse
Receives the morsel; flesh obscene hog
Or vermin; or at best of cock purloined
From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race
They pick their fuel out of every hedge
Which, kindled with dry leaves and wood, just saves
The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide
Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin
The vellum of the pedigree they claim.”
The publication of this poem, and the fact that large numbers of gipsy tramps were flitting about the country, with their wretched equipages, may have been the means of stirring the kind hearts of Smith, Crabb, Hoyland, William Allen, of Higham Ferrers, solicitor, and steward to Earl Fitzwilliam, and many others, some eighty or one hundred years ago, to try to reclaim the gipsies from their debasing habits and customs.
It has generally been supposed that the term “green,” given to the land upon which the annual fair is held, comes to us at this date on account of its greensward. This is an error. According to Baker’s and other histories of Northamptonshire, Boughton Green derives its name and title as follows. “In the time of Edward I., William de Nutricilla, abbot of St. Wandegisile, conveyed the lands to John de Boketon or Boughton, from whom they descended to Sir Thomas de Boketon his grandson, and who was succeeded by Sir Henry Green his son and heir, who was Lord Chief Justice of England.” Thus we see the probability of it being called at this ancient date, on account of the close relationship existing between the Boketon or Boughton and Green, Boughton and Green’s wake or fair. In course of time the “and” has been dropped, and we have now “Boughton Green fair.”
“Sir Henry Green obtained a grant or charter, dated 28th February, 1351 (25 of Edward III.), for an annual fair to be held on the manor for the space of three days, beginning with the vigil of the nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 23rd), and ending the day after it.” This being so, the adding of “green” to the fair can be easily accounted for. The site upon which the fair is held is seventeen acres.
Outside, and at the east end of the fair grounds, stands the remains of what was once, no doubt, a fine old Gothic church, dedicated then, as the new church in the village is now, to St. John the Baptist. The tower and spire of the old church fell about a century ago upon a gipsy Smith and his wife, whose sleeping quarters—instead of the gipsy tent—had been for some time beneath its crumbling ruins. The old villagers will tell you, with pride and pleasure upon their faces, that Boughton old church was, before Cromwell destroyed it, one of the seven oldest churches in England. Of course, this is a subject upon which I do not feel to be “master of the situation.” Such was the odium attached to gipsies a century ago, that it was not thought worthwhile to dig them out from beneath the mass of ruins that had fallen upon them; and from the time when the tower and spire fell, to the time when the crumbling refuse was cleared away a few years since, the bones of poor gipsy Smith and his wife had crumbled into dust and been scattered to the winds. It touches a tender and sympathetic chord, and draws forth a scalding tear down one’s face when one ponders over the many evenings the old gipsy couple had enjoyed their frugal meal—maybe of hedgehogs and snails, or the piece of a decaying pig—beneath the belfry, when the bells were pealing forth, soft and low, as the shades of evening were gathering round them, and they were preparing to rest their aimless and useless bones upon the straw in their dark, at times musical, and at other times dismal, abode among the dead. The churchyard and burial ground round the old church is well fenced in, and kept in beautiful order. Several gipsies are buried in the churchyard; but there is no stone to mark the exact spot. They are pretty close to each other, so I am told, at the east end of the church.
Close to the churchyard there is a spring of excellent water, called St. John’s Spring. So highly did our forefathers value it, that it was preserved specially as a rippling little fountain for supplying water for the holy rite of baptism. When I saw it, gipsies, tramps, show people, vagabonds, and all kinds of dirty and clean travellers, with their wretched companions, steeds, and poor bony beasts of burden, were quenching their thirst at this living stream, forcing its way out of the hillside. It seemed, as I stood by, looking at the pails put under its mouth for a filling, to force its way faster, and with greater gusto, delight, and pleasure into the dirty pails, owned by dirty hands and dirtier faces, whose filthy bodies were covered with stinking rags, than into clean pails carried by white hands and lovely smiling faces peering over them. One little dirty urchin put his mouth under it for “a drink.” No sooner was this done, than the holy spring covered his unholy dirty face with more clear water than he wanted, some of which found its way down his bosom and into his breeches; at this he “sobbed,” and sobbed right out that I could not help laughing. He turned up his piebald watery face as if in anger at my laughing at him. I said to him, “What is the matter with you?” “No—no—no—no—nought is the matter wi me. It’s co—co—co—cold, and you woodner laugh if you were like me. It’s wet my belly.”
The little fellow for once received a washing, contrary, no doubt, to his wish. After he had dried his face with the ragged remains of a dirty sleeve, he found his way back to the green—I expect his mother would scarcely know him—and I went for a stroll down “Spectacle Lane,” where gipsies formerly tented and camped in large numbers.