1862 ‘Upware Bustle’
The village was part of a major coprolite mining are and at Rogationtide there was a fair and festival. The miners decided to have a ‘Bustle’ in Upware on one of the Rogation days and arranged for the setting up of dancing-booths, skittle alleys and shellfish stalls. Many houses open to sell beer, as ‘Bough Houses’, a Rogationtide tradition.
On this occasion by late morning fights had broken out. Police came in from Wicken but were driven off. It was claimed that the ‘King of Upware’, alias Richard Ramsey Fielder, who lived at the ‘Five Miles from Anywhere Inn – No Hurry‘ had encouraged the fighting. (See Tales of Old Cambridgeshire by Polly Howat, 1990)
Mike Petty’s Scrapbook
https://archive.org/details/UpwareScrapbook1897To1990
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