Bron Fair was held on the 22nd of June each year, and was a school holiday. It would have been impossible for the children to walk through the village; every road was blocked with horses of all sizes from mountain ponies to large cart horses. There were also lots of dealers and quite a lot of gypsies; the gypsy women dressed up in bright coloured clothes. The gypsies usually had a lot of piebald horses. As there wasn't a pub in the village a one day pub was set up at the wheelwrights shop and did a brisk trade. Bron Fair cakes were sold at the shop. They were like a four-inch flat biscuit with a serrated edge, and very good they were too! There were four or five policemen at the fair. I believe there used to be some fights. I was told that a young fellow named Jim Prince used to come to the fair on purpose to have a fight with anyone who would take him on, but once he found his match in a gypsy who, he said, was a bit too good with his fists for him! Offenders were locked up in the Reading Room, a small building next to the blacksmith's shop, until they cooled down a bit. At one time there were stalls on the green, as can be seen on a postcard that I have of Bron Fair. The Reading Room was a sort of men's club, with a library of books, various card and board games, and airgun shooting.

From 'Reminiscences of Life in Brampton Bryan' by Robert Geoffrey Walter Messer 1903-1988 (© Leintwardine History Society)