The Fairlop Oak surrounded by the crowed gathered to celebrate the Fairlop Friday Fair. From A Curious Account of the Origin of Fairlop Fair: with an entertaining description of the motley multitude who assemble on that occasion, published by W. Darton 1811 (images courtesy University of California Libraries, via archive.org).

On the first Friday of July,
Then people meet together,
Regardless of the summer fly,
And fearless of the weather.

The summer has always been a time for all kinds of outdoor celebrations.  While seasonal events like harvest festivals were celebrated by communities all over the country, other festivals had a specifically local character.

One of these is the Fairlop Fair (still celebrated today), a day-long event focused around the once famous Fairlop Oak in Hainault Forest, Essex.  Many English festivals have ancient roots, but the Fairlop Fair appears to be a relatively modern invention, a gathering of London workers wishing to escape the city for a rare summer holiday in the countryside.

The Fairlop Fair, which took place on the first Friday in July, was established in the early eighteenth century.  Its continuing popularity is reflected in A Curious Account of Fairlop Fair; with an entertaining description of the motley multitude who assemble on that occasion, a book for children published in 1811 by William Darton.

The book’s plentiful illustrations and verse describing the day out capture the character of the ‘motley multitude’ of Londoners travelling to Hainault.  From the packing of refreshments to sustain them through the day, to their late night meanderings home, Darton’s vivid portraits of everyone from typical family groups to revellers packed onto carts and coaches conveys the rambunctious nature of Fair’s visitors.

The Fairlop Oak is well documented in paintings and prints, (many examples of which can be seen on the Hainault Forest website) and these images record the tree’s gradual decline over the years, showing its hollow trunk and dying branches.  In its heyday the Fairlop Oak’s trunk measured more than thirty feet in circumference, while its canopy was said to cover an acre of ground.  Although the tree was all but dead by the time Darton records the Fair, the event still drew in crowds of visitors.

The celebration was started by Mr Thomas Day, a boat-builder from Wapping, and Darton explains to the young reader how Day and his friends would travel to the Fairlop Oak in a horse-drawn boat.  The boat, filled with musicians, would be paraded around the old tree.  This spectacle gradually attracted more and more people, and so the Fair began.  Some fascinating photographs on the Hainault Forest website show that a boat on wheels still travelled by road to the Fair from the East End of London as late as 1901.

There’s a sense in which Fairlop Friday with its music, crowds, and copious alcohol mirrors the supposedly more genteel garden gatherings at venues in central London from this time, at Vauxhall and Ranelagh.  The Fair also anticipates the immense popularity of today’s outdoor music festivals like Glastonbury.

Sadly, most of these festivals are unable to go ahead this year due to Covid-19, and judging by the unusually large crowds of people in my local park, enjoying the sun and picnics in the shade of the plane trees, they’re much missed.  There are links to the Hainault Forest website and Darton’s book below.

A family gets dressed for the fair, with their coach waiting for them outside.

Thomas Day, founder of Fairlop Fair drinking and smoking with his friends at the foot of the oak – whilst musicians entertain them.

Thomas Day’s extraordinary boat.

Thomas Day is said to have taken a branch of the Fairlop Oak with which to fashion his coffin.

A festival atmosphere greets visitors to the Fairlop Fair.

This carriage is over-loaded with travellers – many of whom are drinking heavily.

Outdoor events are at the mercy of the weather – here revellers are rained off.

The return to London – the dome of St Paul’s is visible across the fields. Many travellers look the worse for wear.

Further reading:

A Curious Account of the Origin of Fairlop Fair

Hainault Forest website – Fairlop Oak

Hainault Forest website – Fairlop Fair

The Oak from The Woodland Companion by John Aikin (1815). Digital version courtesy of The Library of Congress

Amidst today’s alarm at our state of disconnection with nature, there’s a tendency to assume that in the past everyone possessed a detailed knowledge about the natural world.  So it’s rather comforting to learn that in the early 19^th century John Aikin (1747 -1822) decided that a tree identification book was needed to assist the many children (and adults) that didn’t know an oak tree from an ash.

The Woodland Companion, first published in 1802, begins with a frank assessment of the nation’s woeful lack of knowledge about trees:

‘The confined knowledge which young persons, and even those of advanced age, are usually found to possess of the noblest products of the vegetable creation, the trees which compose our woods and decorate our parks and pleasure-grounds, suggested to the writer that a brief description of them, in the form of a pocket-companion of the rural walk, might be acceptable.’

Like all the best pocket book guides, each tree in The Woodland Companion is accompanied by a detailed illustration of the leaves, flowers and fruits.  Aikin describes the size and shape of the trees and typical situations where they might be found.  He also takes time to inform us about the uses of the timber, revealing a world before mechanisation where wood was a material fundamental to every aspect of life, from architecture, transport, agriculture to the home.

After a career as a doctor, John Aikin (1747 -1822) took up writing in his retirement and was adept at producing material that a popular audience would enjoy.  He published many educational works about science, biography, poetry and the highly successful stories for children Evenings at Home which he wrote with his sister Anna Laetitia Barbauld.  The images used in The Woodland Companion were first commissioned by Alexander Hunter for his illustrated edition of John Evelyn’s Sylva (published in 1776 and re-printed several times).

I’ve included some of these fragile foldouts below with some details from Aikin about the trees and their uses.  There’s a link to the text at The Library of Congress at the very end of the post.

‘In our days, beech is a common material of the turner and cabinet maker; the former using it for his larger ware; and the latter, for common chairs and other articles of furniture.  It is, indeed, almost the only English wood employed by the London cabinet-makers.  Its lightness causes it to be chosen for the handles of tools; and it is split into thin scales for band-boxes, sword scabards, and the like.  The dried leaves of the beech make a very good stuffing for mattresses.’

The chesnut:  ‘Among the mast-bearing trees this may be reckoned the most valuable, since its nuts, by their sweet and farinaceous quality, are rendered good food for man, as well as for other animals.  The chesnuts cultivated for their fruit are usually grafted ones, called by the French marronier;  and in many parts of the south of Europe they afford great part of the sustenance of the poor, who make bread of their flour.  In this country the fruit of the chesnut is small, and seldom comes to maturity; it is therefore left to the hogs and squirrels.’

‘The wood of the elm is hard and tough, and useful for a variety of purposes.  It is particularly serviceable for occasions which require its being kept constantly wet; as in the keels and planking beneath the water-line of ships, mill-wheels and water-works, and especially for water-pipes, the great demand for which is the cause of its frequency about London, and of the practice of training it without branches to a tall straight trunk, which may admit of boring in long pieces.  It is likewise used for axel-trees, naves, gate-posts and rails, floors, dressers, blocks &c. and it is very fit for the carved and ornamental works belonging to architecture.’

The ash ‘may be peculiarly termed the husbandman’s tree; for it is one of the principal materials in making ploughs, harrows, waggons, carts and various other implements for rustic use: hence a proportional number of ash-trees should be planted in every farm.’

The sycamore: ‘It is not uncommonly planted in streets, and before houses, on account of its shade.  It also has the property of being less injured by the neighbourhood of the sea, and the dashing of the salt spray, than almost any other tree; and hence is often set in rope-walks in maritime towns.  It comes early into flower, and usually bears a vast profusion of pendent light-green bunches or catkins, which make a handsome show.  The flowers smell strong of honey, and afford much pasture to bees.’

The lime: ‘No tree is so much employed for avenues, and for bordering streets and roads.  Some of the straight walks of ancient limes, which modern taste has hitherto spared, are beautiful specimens of the pointed arch made by the intersection of branches, which has supposed to be imitated in the Gothic architecture of cathedrals.’

The horse chesnut: ‘This tree, which is originally a native of the East, has not very long been naturalized in England.  Its introduction here has been solely owing to its beauty, in which, in the flowering season, it certainly excels every other tree of its bulk that bears our climate.’ 

The hornbeam:  ‘It thrives well on a cold stiff clay, on the sides of hills, bears lopping and transplanting, and is capable of resisting the wind.  It is, however, principally cultivated as a shrub and underwood, and is excellent for forming tall hedges or screens in nursery grounds or ornamental gardens.  The wood of hornbeam is very white, tough and strong.  It is used for yokes, handles for tools, and cogs for mill-wheels, and is much valued by the turner.’

‘Hazel charcoal is preferred to any other by painters and engravers, for the freedom with which it draws, and the readiness with which its marks can be rubbed out.  The nuts of the hazel are a generally agreeable fruit.  They abound in a mild oil, which may be extracted by expression, and is used by painters for mixing with their colours.’

Further reading:

The Woodland Companion

John Aikin (Wikipedia)

Alexander Hunter (Wikipedia)

Weeping Willow at Pope’s Villa (Alexander Pope’s house at Twickenham)

An abundance of paintings and plans have familiarised us with the design of parks and public gardens in the Georgian period, but it’s more unusual to come across detailed studies of individual trees they contained.  The artist François Louis Thomas Francia (1772 – 1839) provides some striking close ups of these trees, many of them in London, in his instructional drawing book Progressive lessons tending to elucidate the character of trees, with the process of sketching, and painting them in water colours published in 1813.

Francia has chosen trees of great character for his sketches – large, mature specimens which bear witness to the damage time (and people) have wrought upon them.  He resists the temptation to repair their imperfections, instead embracing their leaning trunks and dead branches and making these an integral part of his composition.  Interestingly, the plane tree (Platanus x hispanica) which dominates central London streets and open spaces today is absent from Francia’s studies, which reveal mostly native tree species.

Backgrounds in his sketches capture the semi-rural mood of Chelsea and Green Park, now built up and completely changed.  A sketch in Hyde Park shows an elm’s enormous canopy sheltering cattle – a scene almost impossible to envisage in a space now dominated by crowds of people.  At Millbank a pollarded willow tree grows on the quiet shoreline, before the construction of the Embankment and present day network of streets.

What is Francia’s advice to students wishing to draw a tree?  The key to representing the character of each tree species accurately, he says, starts with the close observation of the different shapes of the leaves and growth patterns of leaf clusters and branches.  For this purpose he suggests gathering specimens of these, which are dried and used as reference at home or in the studio.  He recommends drawing individual leaves repeatedly until students can remember their shapes.

He further explains his process of observation using the elm tree as an example:

‘The leaves from their smallness, closeness and quantity, acquire, at a little distance, a rotundity in the appearance of the clusters; and from the length and pliability of the branches they incline every way; that is, pointedly upwards at the top of the tree; horizontally in the middle; and downwards towards the bottom, with a tendency to curl upwards again.’

François Louis Thomas Francia was a refugee from Calais, France who came to England as a child.  He was an accomplished landscape painter and for some time the secretary of the Associated Painters in Water Colours.  Francia returned to Calais in 1816 (in the same year he was refused membership of the Royal Academy) and remained there until his death in 1839.

As we move into early autumn most London trees are still carrying green leaves, although after another dry summer, they’ve lost the freshness of spring and some are already starting to change colour.  Francia’s original trees are now gone, but his sketches and observations are still valuable – as a historical record certainly – but also as inspiration to look more closely at the trees around us today and appreciate them more.

Links to various sources at the end of the page.

Studies of individual leaves, leaf clusters and branches.

Francia says, ‘It is not necessary to become a perfect Botanist to delineate a leaf or a tree; it is only requisite that there be a sufficient resemblance, or character, in every tree we paint, or draw, as to be known and named by the spectators;’

Examples of the colours used by Francia.  Opposite each tree sketch he details which colours were used.

Fairlop Oak in Haynault Forest

Francia says of the oak:  ‘.. it will be observed that the leaf arranges itself in five or six leaves to a cluster, has a constant tendency to project horizontally, and even upwards; so caused by its being attached to branches which, by the abruptness of outline, evidently shew great strength in the tree; very different from the pliability and buoyancy of the Ash.’

The Fairlop Oak was a famous and well documented tree and the Fairlop Fair was held beneath its branches in the 18th century.  More details on the Hainault Forest website:  www.hainaultforest.co.uk

Elm in Hyde Park

Chesnut in Chelsea Gardens

‘The Chesnut .. has a much larger and longer leaf than the Oak, from which it varies particularly in its indentures or edges, which are less circular; it hangs five, six or seven leaves in clusters, and by spreading wide from the trunk on all sides, produce more shade than most other trees;’

Beech in the New Forest

Francia’s notes on the beech tree:  ‘A beautiful forest tree, which from the smallness of its foliage scarcely shews its individuality.  Its leading characters are its sharp pointedness at top, and sweeping branches all the way down, elegantly striving to point upwards.’

Willow on Millbank (with Lambeth Palace on the opposite side of the Thames).

Poplar in Buckingham Gardens

Ash in the New Forest

‘The leaf of this most elegant tree is long, and by its arrangement on the branch appears to lose its length by the circular character given to its clusters.  It is the most playful and buoyant of all Trees, and for beauty of form and elegance of distribution in its branches, as well as character, we know of no tree surpassing the Ash.’

Sycamore in the Green Park

Further reading:

Progressive Lessons by Francois Louis Thomas Francia
(Made available by the Getty Research Institute via the Internet Archive)

Francois Louis Thomas Francia