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Ralph Hedley R.B.A.
Proclaiming the fair
at Corbridge
1882
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Alternative title
Proclaiming Stagshaw Fair
at Corbridge   
(Laing Art Gallery 1938)

 oil on canvas
672 x 945 mm
SIGNED  b.l.c. R Hedley / 82

EXHIBITED
 
Loan Exhibition of Works
by Ralph Hedley R.B.A.
Laing Art Gallery,
Newcastle, 1938 (88)

Ralph Hedley: Tyneside Painter,
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1990-91

PUBLIC COLLECTION

Laing Art Gallery,
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
 Reference  TWCMS : B6656
Gift from Mrs Zara Laing, 1950

 

Ralph Hedley Archive Reference

1882_w006

 

 

 

Proclaiming the fair
at Corbridge

In 1882 the largest annual livestock market in the North was held a Stagshawbank in Northumberland. It attracted farmers from all over the North of England and the South of Scotland.

Proclaiming the fair at Corbridge shows the Duke of Northumberland's bailiff (mounted with proclamation) announcing the fair at the market cross in Corbridge, with the Duke's piper (also mouted), carrying his Northumbrian pipes.

Horses are driven up the street at some speed, and, sitting next to the cross, an "egg and biscuit woman” smokes short clay pipe.

The square stone structure with a pyramidal cap topped with a ball, was a communal water pump known as ‘The Pant’ and can be seen again in an earlier picture, Children at the pant, 1880 (1880_w012,)