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Bartholomew Fair

Although some fairs had started to die out, some still provided popular entertainment in the Regency. You may have heard of Bartholomew Fair, which took place in London in September, or Scarborough Fair, which occurred in Scarborough, Yorkshire, around the same time (although it closed for good in 1788). Both were among a group of several “charter” fairs, established by Royal charter centuries before our period. Like most of them, they combined sales of things like cloth, rugs, or farm tools with entertainment like games, puppets, acrobats, rides, and dancing. You can see the swings in the image below. A few fairs still go on! So we’ll try to replicate one at the Historical Romance Retreat.

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Regency Tidbit

People in the Regency time period also liked to travel, and, as with now, they often went to the beach. For Accidentally His, I enjoyed researching and writing about a Regency seaside experience (it certainly made for good sensual scenes). Plenty of men swam in the nude and some women, too, which was facilitated by the fact that men and women had separate beaches. For the more modest, there were bathing gowns and the machines in which to change into them. I honestly don’t know why they called them “machines.” There’s nothing machine-like about them. They’re simply boxes/covered wagons that had openings at either end. You went in on one end, changed your clothes as the “machine” was being towed into the water, and then climbed down into the water on the other end. You can see pics of the bathing machines at Jane Austen’s World and my Pinterest page about the book.

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