Moreover, the trades-folk of the town were obliged to close their
shops during the days of the fair, and to bring their goods to the
fair, so that the toll-owner might gain good profit withal.
We can imagine, or try to imagine, the roads and streets leading to
the market-place thronged with traders and chapmen, the sellers of
ribbons and cakes, minstrels and morris-dancers, smock-frocked
peasants and sombre-clad monks and friars. Then a horn was sounded,
and the lord of the manor, or the bishop's bailiff, or the mayor of
the town proclaimed the fair; and then the cries of the traders, the
music of the minstrels, the jingling of the bells of the
morris-dancers, filled the air and added animation to the spectacle.
There is a curious old gateway, opposite the fair-ground at
Smithfield, which has just recently narrowly escaped destruction, and
very nearly became part of the vanished glories of England. Happily
the donations of the public poured in so well that the building was
saved. This Smithfield gateway dates back to the middle of the
thirteenth century, the entrance to the Priory of St. Bartholomew,
founded by Rahere, the court jester of Henry I, a century earlier.
Every one knows the story of the building of this Priory, and has
followed its extraordinary vicissitudes, the destruction of its nave
at the dissolution of monasteries, the establishment of a fringe
factory in the Lady Chapel, and the splendid and continuous work of
restoration which has been going on during the last forty years.
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