Aldbrough Castle
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Aldbrough St John Feast is an annual event which takes place during the week in which the Monday is the second Monday in August. Thie origins of the Feast go back to 1281. After the Conquest in 1066, local land was given to Alan the Red, Duke of Brittany, and he was responsible for building Richmond castle. In the 13th century, the land of the Earldom of Richmond belonged to Eleanor of Provence, the wife of Henry III. On the death of Eleanor, Henry III confirmed the Earlldom of Richmond on John, Duke of Brittany, who was a linear descendant of Alan the Red. After the death of Henry, Edward I granted by charter to John, Earl of Richmond the right to hold at Aldbrough a weekly market on Tuesday and & yearly Fair on the vigil, feast and morrow of St, Michael. This yearly fair is therefore the origin of today's Aldbrough Feast. The original fair would presumably have been an occasion for celebrating the end of the harvest and a time when servants were hired for the next year. Little is known about the Fair and how it turned into the present annual Feast on the second monday in August. Its present form is known from the accounts of people who were living in the village before the second world war. In the thirties, the main attraction for the Monday was the trotting races. These were discontinued in the late forties when the sewage pipes were laid down the green and destroyed the surface, The races were then replaced by a gymkhana. In the seventies, various other attractions were tried, but not with great success. The gymkhana was then re-instated and has become the mainstay of the
Feast, over the past few years, the activities of the Feast have
increased and there is now some activity on most days of Feast week.
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