The greatest fair in 17th century London, held near Smithfield market - was known to Londoners as Bartholomew Fair. To visit the site during the daytime now, is to enter a different world: light pavement traffic, significant portions of the market permanently shut, the odd scurrying commuter. Bars, pubs and restaurants which skirt the market are busy during peak weekday periods, but are distinctly genteel. The only time when it approaches the atmosphere of its past, is late at night over the weekend. The nearby club, Fabric, ensures a steady stream of activity and incident on the streets if you wander this way after midnight. Revelry, whooping, some shouting may cause a few to seek another route home, but this 'party mood' would be in keeping with the atmosphere of the late 1600s.

Smithfield was always a market, though it initially specialised in cloth at one end and cattle at the other (it still operates as London's chief meat market, though on a more modest scale). During the 14th century jousts and duels were fought here, but there would have been activity in the area stretching back millennia, being as it is within the walls of Roman London. In addition football matches and wrestling were popular diversions, as well as more visceral events such as executions at the gallows or stake. The nearby and appropriately named Cock Lane, was a hotbed of open prostitution and where there was prostitution, drinking and gambling were never far behind.

The cloth market had dwindled by the 17th century but retained the rights to 'the privileges of a fair' through the City of London Corporation (which still adminsters the Square Mile today from The Guildhall). Instead of the humdrum appeal of a '3 day cloth market', it was re-badged as a bumper 14 day festival - Bartholomew Fair. The over-riding purpose was entertainment with an emphasis on 'sensation'. Puppet shows, human freaks, street performers, jugglers and fire breathers, games of dice and thimble. Tents galore were erected for eating in (roast pork was the speciality), for drinking in and above all - for dancing in. The popular cry of the hawkers on the street was "What do you lack? What is it you buy?" Suggesting that anything and all things for the purposes of human pleasure, could be acquired at Bartholomew's Fair.

Ben Johnson produced a play of the same name (with contemporary spelling) - "Bartholmew Fayre" which describes: a cacophony of rattles, drums and fiddles, booths and toyshops, traders selling baskets of live whiting, singing birds, hot pies, shrimps, Yorkshire cakes, old clothes, pencils, Kentish cherries, ropes of onions, kitchen 'stuff' and a hundred other products and services. He noted a "Wonder of Nature - a girl about 16 years of age, born in Cheshire and not above 18 inches long... Reads very well, whistles and all very pleasant to hear." Also described were small lads collecting the discarded apple cores for bears performing in the fighting pits.

It was common for acts to return year-on-year to build up expectation and a following in the crowd, including: "The Tall Dutchwoman" and the "Horse and No Horse whose tail stands where his head should do". It's easy to imagine its appeal was similar to the salacious sections of the modern day Internet. It was possible to see and hear sights and sounds at Bartholomew Fair, which ordinarily were recounted by word-of-mouth and often victim to wild exaggeration. A horse with no head was a sight to silence a baying crowd, particularly one half-cut with cheap ale. Probably the most famous act of all was the "the English Posture Master" - Joseph Clark. Who could "put out of joynt almost any Bone and Vertebra of his body and to replace it again." His ability to contort himself out of any recognisable form was the toast of the mob. There was a Ferris wheel (called a "Whirligig" at the time, then later known as an "Up and Down") described by Ned Ward in the London Spy. "Children lock'd up in flying coaches who insensibly climb'd upwards... being once elevated to a certain height come down again according to the circular motion of the sphere they move in." It must have been difficult to imagine from written descriptions at the time, but all the more reason to visit in person and experience what Bartholomew's Fair had to offer first-hand.

The general hullabaloo of the event began to fray the nerves of the authorities and the fair was commuted to 3 days at the end of August, from the original 14 in 1708. It had a calming effect to an extent, but the fair changed little in character. If there was one overwhelming national influence to develop from the fair then it was the character of Punch - "monarch" of the puppet play. He was a violent, vulgar character, brimming with sexual innuendo and consequently adored by the London crowds. Often seating himself next to a bend of girls - "My beautiful ones," he would say winking roguishly, "here's a girlfriend come to join you!" With his pot-belly, big nose and long stick he was gross and perverse - but an instantly recognisable urban character. Over the centuries, he was watered down to a small, squeaky entertainment for children. Long gone the days when he was slapping his wife's bare buttocks, for the titillation of the adult crowd.

The fair eventually fizzled out, but late August was taken over by another 20th century version of the same celebration of excess. The last 3 days of August are host to the Notting Hill Carnival, derived from an earlier Trinidadian carnival to celebrate the end of slavery. It first appeared in 1964 and is now Europe's largest cultural arts fair. The focus at Notting Hill is predominantly on music and costume, but the 17th century visitor would certainly recognise and develop an affection for the revelry, showmanship and excess. Appropriately in keeping with that distant but original instrument of London sensation: Bartholomew's Fair.