Midsummer Common
Riverside common meadow hosting a centuries-old midsummer fair, bonfire night and grazing cattle.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Midsummer Common in Cambridge starts with a coin pressed into a child's hand at the opening of the Midsummer Fair, a ceremony the city's mayor still leads every June. It reaches back to springs where boys and girls once sang on Midsummer Eve, to the canons of Barnwell Priory, and to a royal charter that turned a gathering into a market. Along the way you'll meet the university officials who claimed the right to search the fair for vagabonds.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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