Elsdon : Fairs and Markets

Even after it had lost its manorial significance with the concentration of the Umfraville lordship at Harbottle and a subsidiary centre at Otterburn, Elsdon seems to have remained the principal economic centre in Redesdale with two annual fairs and weekly markets.

The earliest reference to a market at Elsdon occurs in 1279 when Gilbert de Umfraville claimed that from time immemorial his ancestors had levied tolls at his markets of Harbottle and Elsdon (Northumb. Assize R., 373). In 1281 Edward I granted William de Umfraville (the son of Robert who held a carucate of ploughland at Elsdon in 1242) the right to hold a market 'on his manor of Elsdon' every Thursday and a three-day fair around the Feast of St Bartholomew (Rot. Cart. 9 Edw.1 no.10 Turr. Lond; reproduced in Hodgson 1827, 87). In addition, at the Newcastle assizes in 1293, Gilbert de Umfraville established his right to hold a weekly Sunday market and a fair on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (15 August) at Elsdon, whilst also claiming a gallows, tumbrel, pillory and tolls there (Placita de Quo Warranto, 21 & 22 Edw. I; cf. Hodgson 1820, 150-1; 1827, 25, 93).

It was unusual for somewhere as small as Elsdon to have two market days and annual fairs. The circumstances by which this came about are illuminated by a series of legal documents which reveal that a furious struggle broke out for control of the market at Elsdon in the 1280s, instigated by the most powerful figures in Redesdale society (cf. Taylor n.d. (b), 13-14).

Perhaps surprisingly, the compromise of having two markets and fairs may have proved to be a lasting arrangement. Certainly the market and fair which the lords of Redesdale had control over were maintained right up until the end of the medieval period.

In 1495, the fair at Elsdon 'on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, with court of piepowder while it lasts, and a market there on Sundays weekly, with tolls and customs and the other advantages of such fairs and markets' were listed among the appurtenances of the manor of Otterburn in the Inquisition Post Mortem for the deceased lord, Robert Tailbois (Cal IPM Henry VII, i, 415, no. 971). The Border Survey, carried out just over a century, later makes no mention of either market, but does indicate that Michael Hall, one of customary tenants at Elsdon, paid an annual rent of 3s 4d for 'the toule (toll) of two faires' (1604 Survey, 100). By the mid-18th century the Rev. Dodgson was able to declare there had not been a market at Elsdon within living memory, a view confirmed by Hodgson in the early part of the following century, although the latter does assert that the St Bartholomew's fair was 'still in a small way in existence' (1827, 87).