Marking 200th anniversary of first market in Crossgar

1 May 2024

AN event to mark the 200th anniversary of the first market in Crossgar will be held on Saturday, May 11.

In association with the Crossgar Historical Society, the Cats Protection Downpatrick Branch will host a charity spring variety sale in Crossgar War Memorial Hall.

Crossgar Market was established in 1824 to coincide with the naming of the village.

The townland of Crossgar was owned by Edward Southwell Ruthven. Such rural townlands were better known by their landmarks rather than the townland itself.

In the case of Crossgar, it was better known as Everogue’s Bridge, as this was the village’s main feature of note.

This bridge over the Glasswater River provided an important passage between the main towns of east Down.

However, by the early 1820s, the new village which had developed around the bridge was of more significance than the short crossing offered by the bridge itself.

Therefore when a new market was advertised in December 1823, it was decided to call the new village by the wider townland it was situated in – Crossgar.

As was his right, the landlord could have named the new village anything, as was later done with the street names. As with Castle Ward or Seaforde, the village could have been named Ruthven Cross after the landlord.

However when naming the new market village, Crossgar was formally put on the map by its owner and continued to be a popular market village for the next 130 years.

Mr Ruthven’s newspaper advertisement for the new market, otherwise known as the Crossgar Fair, said: “NOTICE: A new Fair at Crossgar, formerly known by the name of Everogue’s Bridge.

“A fair, custom-free, for the Sale of cattle, of all deions, will be held on the second Wednesday of January, 1824; to be continued on the same day of each alternate month, from that date, at Crossgar, situated midway between the Post Towns of Downpatrick, Ballynahinch, Saintfield, Killinchy and Killileagh.

“The central situation of Crossgar renders it peculiarly eligible for those Persons who may have Stock of any kind to dispose of.

”The care which will be taken to regulate everything in the best manner, and to accommodate Buyers, added to the certainty of finding a large collection of Stock of every description, will be sufficient inducement for their attendance.

“On the days before mentioned, a Yarn Market will be opened at nine o’clock.

E. S. RUTHVEN. Dated 10th December, 1823.”

With Crossgar being the centre of good agricultural land and a good river stage for milling around Kilmore, the fair was a major success and proved very popular for local farmers and merchants to sell livestock and materials. Very soon, the fair moved from alternate months to monthly. Crossgar’s fair was one of roughly 100 in Ulster in the 1820s – Kilmore occasionally being listed as one of those for another few decades.

From 1827, Crossgar had a new landlord, William Thompson of Rademon, and within two years he began building a market house at the market square to assist in the village’s commercial and civic development.

In December 1830, a report on Crossgar Fair stated: “It is gratifying to observe the prosperity which attends this newly-established town; every fair shows its convenience, its central location, and the respectability of those who attend. The new Market house is about being completed, and the Grain market is expected to commence the first week in the new year.”

The fair grew from strength to strength and by the 1840s, Crossgar Fair was described as the “finest in the county”, attracting dealers in horses, pigs, sheep and cattle from all over Britain and Ireland. The scale of the fair is evident by the spacious market square still visible today.

With the advent of the Belfast and County Down Railway through Crossgar in 1859, the fair became even more popular, with special trains put on, including from Ballynahinch, to transport livestock and dealers.

Adding to the success of this weekly market, the sale of wheat, oats and barley was added to the market in October 1860. Unlike the monthly fair, this weekly market ran weekly unannounced, and thus it is not known how long it ran for.

Crossgar Fair ran for nearly every month from 1824 until 1953, three years after the closure of the railway. While the fair was able to endure the economic hardships longer than many others in Northern Ireland, by 1953 the abnormal increase in the marketing of livestock contributed to its eventual demise.

At the time of its cessation the fair had become one of the oldest livestock fairs in Ulster.

Crossgar Historical Society president Callum Bowsie said: “We are glad to have teamed with Cat Protection to hold a spring sale to mark the 200th anniversary of the Crossgar Market which began in January 1824 and ran every month for 129 years.

“It is great to be marking the historical occasion by supporting a local charity event. We have other plans in the pipeline to mark the 200th anniversary of Crossgar becoming a market village.”

Admission to the sale is free and refreshments will be provided from 10am to 1pm. All funds raised will go toward the Downpatrick branch of Cats Protection which is one of 210 volunteer-run branches under the UK’s leading feline welfare charity.

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