Abingdon Fair: Mon 5 and Tue 6 Oct, Bus Diversions Out

The Abingdon Michaelmas Fair is on Monday 5 and Tuesday 6 October 2026, noon to 11pm on both days. It fills the Market Place, the High Street, The Square and the whole length of Ock Street, which is why Abingdon Town Council calls it the longest street fair in Europe.

Updated Sunday 4 October: the Abingdon fair 2026 starts today. The Abingdon Blog’s early October listings, published on 2 October, give the fair as Sunday 4 to Tuesday 6 October and put the Fair Blessing Service in the Market Place at 4pm today. Oxford Bus Company and Thames Travel diversions run from 7am today to 9am on Wednesday 7 October; the route-by-route list is below. The Runaway Fair date was still unpublished by either council on 4 October.

The date is not a choice anyone makes each year. The town council’s own fairs page states the rule: “By law, the Michaelmas fair must take place annually on the Monday and Tuesday falling first before the 11 October.” In 2026, 11 October is a Sunday, so the fair lands on the 5th and the 6th.

Abingdon Fair 2026 dates, at a glance

There are two fairs, a week apart, and people searching for “the Abingdon fair” mean one or the other.

If you only remember one thing: the fair is the 5th and the 6th, the roads are shut from the 4th to the 7th, and the Sunday is now worth turning up for as well. A Wednesday errand into the town centre on 7 October runs into the same closures as the fair itself even though the rides have stopped, and the Sunday closures are in place whether or not the operator opens.

Is the Abingdon fair 2026 open on Sunday 4 October?

Yes, as far as anyone has published. The Abingdon Blog’s “What’s On in Abingdon, Early October 2026”, posted on 2 October 2026 and read on 4 October, says the Michaelmas Fair “returns to Abingdon from Sunday 4 to Tuesday 6 October” and that the Fair Blessing Service will take place in the Market Place at 4pm on Sunday 4 October. That is half an hour later than the 3.30pm service in 2025. The showmen’s own listings agree on 4 to 6 October, still with an asterisk against the Sunday. Neither Abingdon Town Council nor the county council has published a Sunday programme, so expect the pattern of the last two years rather than the full fair from noon: food stalls and children’s rides first, everything running by the blessing.

The Sunday is also the part every older guide to the fair gets wrong, including the earlier version of this page.

Traditionally the Sunday carried only the Fair Service and the Mayor’s official opening, with the rides staying shut until the Monday. That changed in 2024. The Abingdon Blog, reporting from the Market Place on 5 October 2025, recorded that it was “only the second year the fair has been opened on a Sunday”, that the 2024 Sunday had been “hampered by rain”, and that in 2025 “several food stalls and children’s rides were already open by midday”. By the time of the Fair Service at 3.30pm, “all the fairground rides and sideshows were operating” and the operator, Bob Wilson’s Fun Fairs, was billing the day as “Super Sunday Funday”.

So Sunday is no longer just build-up. Two caveats stand:

• It is the operator’s call, not a fixture. Neither council has published a Sunday programme, and the showmen’s own listings mark the 2026 fair as 4 to 6 October with an asterisk against the Sunday, which is how the trade flags a day that is up to the operator. The 2026 Sunday rests on the local listings above.
• It is not the full fair. In 2025 the Market Place was the last part to come alive, and the ride line-up before the Mayor’s opening was the smaller children’s rides and the food stalls rather than everything.

The Fair Service itself has moved around: 7pm on the Sunday in 2021, 3.30pm on the Sunday in 2025, and 4pm on Sunday 4 October 2026, in the Market Place, where the blessing has traditionally been given on the golden gallopers.

The road closures already cover Sunday 4 October in full, so a Sunday opening needs no extra traffic order and could be announced at short notice.

Read the county council’s order, not the town council’s pages

If you search for this fair you will land on Abingdon Town Council’s news article about it. Check the date at the top: it was published in October 2019. The council’s separate Michaelmas and Runaway fairs page, re-checked on 16 September 2026, still gives no dates for any year: it sets out the by-law rule, the history and who runs the fairs, and the only document attached to it is a residents’ and businesses’ letter about road closures from 2022. The only document written for this year is Oxfordshire County Council’s traffic order.

That order, the Oxfordshire County Council (Abingdon Michaelmas Fair) (Special Event) Order 2026, is published in full on the county council’s large public events pages. It defines the event as “the Abingdon Michaelmas Fair from 4-7 October 2026” and comes into force on 4 October. The accompanying statement of reasons, dated 27 August 2026 and referenced S26-020, says the restrictions “will apply from 4 to 7 October 2026 inclusive”.

Those four days are the traffic management window, not the fair itself. Wednesday 7 October is the pull-down and nothing runs. The rides are certain on the Monday and the Tuesday, and likely for part of Sunday 4 October, as set out above.

What closes, and when

Five stretches of road are closed to traffic under Schedule 1 of the order.

The Ock Street and Stratton Way entries are the ones worth reading twice. Both carry a nightly release: the order permits access between midnight and midday, so the fair closure bites from noon each day and lifts after the rides stop.

Waiting is banned outright on four more stretches, all of them the streets people use to dodge the town centre: Bostock Road on both sides from Conduit Road to Victoria Road, the north side of Edward Street from Victoria Road to Spring Road, the west side of Victoria Road from 40 metres north of Ock Street to Exbourne Road, and the west side of Spring Road from the A415 Marcham Road to Faringdon Road.

Two roads reverse or fix their direction for the fair. Lombard Street runs west to east only, and St Helens Wharf Bridge runs east to west only.

Lorries are banned from four entrances

Vehicles over 7.5 tonnes may not enter Abingdon from any of these points while the order is in force:

• The A415 Abingdon Bridge
• Southwards at the Oxford Road roundabout
• Southwards at the Wootton Road roundabout
• Westwards along Radley Road from Audlett Drive

The exemptions in the order are narrow and worth knowing if you live inside the closure. Nothing in it stops a vehicle used by the police, fire or ambulance services, a marked Royal Mail vehicle using Ock Street, a vehicle setting up or dismantling the fair, or a vehicle “requiring access to property only accessible via the closed road(s)”.

Parking and buses

Every town centre car park sits outside the closed streets, but Stratton Way is one of the roads that shuts at midday, so approach from Bath Street or the Vineyard side rather than driving up Ock Street. Tariffs, the free first hour and the three car parks that charge on Sundays are all on our Abingdon parking page.

Bus diversions, 7am Sunday 4 to 9am Wednesday 7 October

Oxford Bus Company’s service updates page, which covers Thames Travel too, says “all of our services will need to divert” while the town centre roads are shut, from 7am on Sunday 4 October to 9am on Wednesday 7 October. Routes 33, 41, 43, 44, 45, X2, X3, X15 and X35 are listed as affected, and the notice also sets out diversions for the 6, BB1 and BB1A. Affected stops are on the High Street, at Coxeters, Conduit Road, Victoria Road, Stratton Way and Bath Street. Route by route, from the operator’s notice:

• X3: towards Abingdon, diverts from the Peachcroft roundabout via Twelve Acre Drive and Radley Road and terminates at Our Lady’s Convent. Towards Oxford it runs its normal route from the convent via Oxford Road. Get off along Radley Road.
• 6: towards Abingdon, diverts from the Radley Road roundabout via Twelve Acre Drive and Oxford Road and terminates at Our Lady’s Convent. Towards Oxford it runs its normal route from the convent via Radley Road.
• X15: diverts via Faringdon Road and Spring Road both ways.
• X2, 41, 43, BB1 and BB1A: divert via Bath Street, Faringdon Road and Spring Road both ways, using the stops at Bath Street and Godwyn Close.
• 33: towards Abingdon, diverts from Bridge Street via East St Helen Street, St Helens Wharf, Caldecott Road, Drayton Road, Spring Road and Faringdon Road, and terminates at Bath Street. Towards Henley it runs from Bath Street via Stert Street to pick up its normal route at Bridge Street.
• 44: towards Abingdon, normal route, terminating at Bath Street. Towards Oxford it diverts via Stert Street, East St Helen Street, St Helens Wharf, Caldecott Road, Drayton Road and Spring Road, rejoining at Faringdon Road.
• 45: towards Abingdon, diverts from Bridge Street via the same St Helens Wharf and Caldecott Road loop to terminate at Bath Street. Towards Cowley it starts from Bridge Street.
• X35: towards Abingdon, diverts via Spring Road and Faringdon Road to terminate at Bath Street. Towards Wantage and Didcot it diverts via Stert Street, East St Helen Street, St Helens Wharf, Caldecott Road and Drayton Road, rejoining at Marcham Road.

The practical reading: if you normally catch a bus on the High Street or Ock Street, walk to Bath Street, which is where most routes now start and finish. Anything else affecting your journey is on our Abingdon roadworks and travel page.

The Runaway Fair, a week later

The Runaway Fair is the smaller second fair, held on the Monday one week after the Michaelmas Fair. The town council explains the name: it was the chance for anyone hired at the Michaelmas Fair who found their new master cruel or the work intolerable to “literally run away and find another place to work”.

The expected 2026 date is Monday 12 October. Treat that as expected rather than confirmed. No first-party source has published it, and that was still true when we re-checked on 3 October 2026: the town council’s fairs page gives the “a week after” rule but no date, and the county council’s order covers only the Michaelmas Fair, so there is no traffic order to read the Runaway Fair off. The listings site The Oxford Magazine gives 12 October, noon to 11pm, which follows the town council’s own “a week after” rule. We will replace this with a confirmed date when one of the councils publishes it.

Why the fair exists at all

Both fairs began as hiring fairs after the Black Death of 1348, when the population fell by more than 40 per cent and workers could suddenly go looking for a better master. The town council’s account describes skilled workers carrying the tools of their trade over one shoulder and unskilled workers carrying a mop instead, which is where the name mop fair comes from. It stayed a hiring fair in part until the early twentieth century.

Both fairs are run by Bob Wilsons Fun Fairs.

Sources

• Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council, Michaelmas and Runaway fairs, read 5 September and re-checked 16 September 2026
• Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council, Abingdon Michaelmas Fair, published October 2019
• Oxfordshire County Council, Abingdon Michaelmas Fair 4-7 October, full text of the Special Event Order 2026
• Oxfordshire County Council, statement of reasons (PDF), dated 27 August 2026, ref S26-020
• Oxford Bus Company, service updates, “Abingdon, Michaelmas Fair 2026” notice, read 3 October 2026
• Abingdon Blog, “What’s On in Abingdon, Early October 2026”, posted 2 October 2026, read 4 October 2026, for the 4 to 6 October run, the 4pm Fair Blessing Service and the 2pm Animal Blessing Service at St Michael’s. Abingdon Town Council’s fairs page re-read the same day: unchanged, still no dates.
• Abingdon Blog, “Abingdon Michaelmas Fair 2025 - Super Sunday Funday”, 5 October 2025, for the Sunday opening being in its second year, the 3.30pm Fair Service and the rides running before it
• Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council, Abingdon Fair Service, for the 7pm Sunday service in 2021