On the 12th March 1338 Edward the Third made a 'Grant of special grace to Henry de Ferrers of a weekly market on Monday at their manor of Stebbing, county of Essex, and a yearly fair there on the vigil and feast of St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostles and the two days following' (28th, 29th, 30th June and 1st July). Henry de Ferrers had probably petitioned the King for such rights and in doing so was following a general trend. Doubtless the main reason for the petition was a desire on de Ferrers part to increase his income by the market and fair dues that would be his. If de Ferrers was not to be cheated of those dues then it was essential that a close watch be kept on both market and fair to assess what his proportion of the profits should be.

To facilitate this it was quite normal for the Lord of the Manor to site the market and fair near the manor house gates, where it was easy for his steward or some other official to keep an eye on the proceedings. In Stebbing this site was almost certainly centred on what is now a small triangular green, known as The Downs, beside the 40 M.P.H. speed limit signs at the northern end of the village.

Both the market and fair in Stebbing were probably at a disadvantage from the beginning. When they were established, in 1338, Dunmow market and fair were already 111 years old, whilst the market at Great Bardfield had been in existence 114 years. Stebbing had to break into what was probably an already settled trading pattern if it was to succeed.

In 1371, thirty three years after Henry de Ferrers received his grant, Margaret de Ferrers, the widow of his son William, received one third of the manor in dower. The deed of dower was very detailed, possibly because Margaret, as William's second wife, was the stepmother of the new Lord of the Manor. Margaret received a part of the manor house that then stood where the farmhouse now stands beside the mound, various farm buildings, land, rents, and one third of the dues from the market and fair. Unfortunately this is not proof that the market and fair in Stebbing had survived the upheaval of the Black Death.

It is possible that this was simply a legal ploy to ensure Margaret's rights, so that if the market and fair had collapsed, she would be entitled to her income from them if they were revived. Certainly nothing more is heard of the market, and when in 1594 John Norden surveyed Essex he did not include Stebbing among his list of places having one.

Fairs have always had their ups and downs and nothing more is known of the fortunes of Stebbing fair until 1765, when it was described in the newspaper, the Ipswich Journal, as 'the greatest in the county for lambs'. The agricultural livestock in which a fair specialised was always subject to change as a result of changing circumstances.

Although Stebbing fair was noted for lambs in 1765, later in the century it was attracting only a poor showing of cows and horses, and by the early 1800's was a fair for calves and cattle. Like manv Essex fairs, Stebbing fair had two parts to its existence, the one part involved in the buying and selling of agricultural livestock the other trading in the non-essentials known as 'fairings' and offering entertainment. It is not clear where the fair operated in 1765 but in the late 1880's it was on two distinctly separate sites. The animal section was still on The Downs, whilst the other section had set up in the High Street. Wherever there was a fair, which included entertainment, licentious behaviour became common.

Many people were there simply to enjoy themselves, and the possibility of rich pickings attracted undesirable characters from a wide area around. Stebbing fair was no exception and in 1802 it became necessary for five of the public house keepers in the village to insert advertisements in the Chelmsford Chronicle saying that they would 'not be accountable for any horses, saddles, bridles, greatcoats, whips, etc. etc. if lost during the fair which commences July 10th 1802'.

The fair was still in being at the beginning of this century, but the agricultural part had changed and now the animals traded on The Downs were cows and horses. One elderly Stebbing resident wrote a few years ago of her childhood, and how she had watched the horses at the fair being run along the road so that the prospective purchaser could see how they moved. For the entertainment part there had been a more drastic change. In 1893 a partially successful effort had been made to close it.

The pleas to do so were all made officially at least, by the local Justices of the Peace, with supporting evidence from the police. The Chief Constable of Essex in his submission wrote that 'this place is only attended by young people of the labouring class of both sexes from the immediate neighbourhood, and in consequence of the filthy language and conduct of the stall people and others of their class attending the fair, I do not think it is likely to improve the morals of the rising generation'. A petition carrying the names of sixty-five parishioners was submitted requesting that the fair be allowed to continue, but feelings seem to have subsided after it was made clear that the move to close the fair only applied to the entertainment part. So, on the 10th March 1893, the then Secretary of State, H H Asquith signed the Abolition Order. But all was not lost, the part of the fair that had been in the High Street simply moved to private ground behind the Red Lion, and there, with by now the addition of Greenaway's steam driven roundabout, it was to continue for some years.

The school Log Books record the effect of the fair on at least some Stebbing parishioners. On the 11th July 1882 the Headmaster wrote '……only 26 present because of the measles and the Horse Fair', then on the 10th July 1899, 'Fair, attendance 123 and 98' (about 75% attendance in the afternoon). Although clearly an attraction to many, the fair was still a dubious place to the 'nicer' children and they walked other ways to school to avoid passing near the fairground. But ten years later the appeal remained strong the entry for the 12th July 1909 reads simply 'Closed early, Fair'.