Various - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 333, September 27, 1828

Throughout Scotland and Ireland there are scattered great numbers of round towers , which have puzzled all antiquarians. They have of late obtained the general name of Fire Towers , and our engraving represents the view of one of them, at Brechin, in Scotland. It consists of sixty regular courses of hewn stone, of a brighter colour than the adjoining church. It is 85 feet high to the cornice, whence rises a low, spiral-pointed roof of stone, with three or four windows, and on the top a vane, making 15 feet more, in all 100 feet from the ground, and measuring 48 feet in external circumference.

Many of these towers in Ireland vary from 35 to 100 feet. One at Ardmore has fasciæ at the several stories, which all the rest both in Ireland and Scotland, seem to want, as well as stairs, having only abutments, whereon to rest timbers and ladders. Some have windows regularly disposed, others only at the top. Their situation with respect to the churches also varies. Some in Ireland stand 25 to 125 feet from the west end of the church. The tower at Brechin is included in the S.W. angle of the ancient cathedral, to which it communicates by a door.

There have been numerous discussions respecting the purposes for which these towers were built; they are generally adjoining to churches, whence they seem to be of a religious nature. Mr. Vallencey considers it as a settled point, that they were an appendage to the Druidical religion, and were, in fact, towers for the preservation of the sacred fire 1 1 Like the ancient Jews and Persians, the Druids had a sacred and inextinguishable fire, which was preserved with the greatest care. At Kildare it was guarded, from the most remote antiquity, by an order of Druidesses, who were succeeded in later times by an order of Christian Nuns. The fire was fed with peeled wood, and never blown with the mouth, that it might not be polluted. of the Druids or Magi . To this Mr. Gough, in his description of Brechin Tower, 2 2 "On the west front of the tower are two arches, one within the other in relief. On the point of the outermost is a crucifix, and between both, towards the middle, are figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John, the latter holding a cup with a lamb. The outer arch is adorned with knobs, and within both is a small slit or loop. At the bottom of the outer arch are two beasts couchant. If one of them by his proboscis was not evidently an elephant , I should suppose them the supporters of the Scotch arms. Parallel with the Crucifix are two plain stones, which do not appear to have had anything upon them. Here is not the least trace of a door in these arches, nor anywhere else, except in the church." raises an insuperable objection. But they are certainly not belfries; and as no more probable conjecture has been made on their original purpose, they are still known as Fire Towers.

For this curious relic we are indebted to Mr. Godfrey Higgins's erudite quarto, entitled "The Celtic Druids," already alluded to at page 121 of our present volume.

(Stirbitch Fair, as our correspondent observes, was once the Leipsic or Frankfurt of England. He has appended to his "Account" a ground plan of the fair, which we regret we have not room to insert; the gaps or spaces in which, serve to show how much this commercial carnival (for such it might be termed) has deteriorated; for the remaining booths were built on the same site as during the former splendour of the fair. Our correspondent accounts for this "decay, by the facilities of roads and navigable canals for the conveyance of goods;" the shopkeepers, &c, "being able to get from London and the manufacturing districts, every article direct, at a small expense, the fair-keepers find no market for their goods, as heretofore." His paper is, however, a curious matter-of-fact description of Stirbitch, "sixty years since." We have been compelled to reject all but one verse of the "Chaunt," on account of some local allusions, the justice of which we do not deny, but which are scarcely delicate enough for our pages.

Stirbitch is still a festival of considerable extent, although it has lost so much of its commercial importance. There are but few fortnight fairs left: Portsmouth, we recollect , lasts 14 days, and there is a fair held on some fine downs in Dorsetshire, which extends to that period.)

Stirbitch Fair is held in a large field near Barnwell, about two miles from Cambridge, covering a space of ground upwards of two miles in circumference. It commences on the 16th day of September, and continues till the beginning of October, for the sale of all kinds of manufactured and other goods, and likewise for horses.

The etymology of the name of this fair has been much disputed. A silly tradition has been handed down, of a pedlar who travelled from the north to this fair, where, being very weary, he fell asleep at the only inn in the place. A person coming into the room where he lay, the pedlar's dog growled and woke his master, who called out, "Stir, bitch"; when the dog seized the man by the throat, which proved to be the master of the inn, who, to get released from the gripe of the dog, confessed his intention was, with the aid of the ferryman who rowed him over from Chesterton, to rob the pedlar; from which circumstance the fair ever after obtained the name of Stirbitch . But a more reasonable derivation might be found in the known custom of holding a festival on the anniversary of the dedication of any religious foundation. There is a small and very ancient chapel, or oratory, of Saxon architecture, still standing in the field where the fair is kept; but to what saint dedicated, is not recorded. I know not if a St. Ower is to be found in the calendar; if there is, it will, by adding "wijk," or "wych," a district or boundary, be no great stretch of invention to account for a transition from "St. Ower wijch" to Stirbitch ; or perhaps from a rivulet which empties itself into the Cam at Quy-water, small streams, in some counties, being called "stours."

Leaving this argument, however, at the road-side chapel, we must proceed to the fair, where the "busy hum of men" announced the approach of the mayor and corporate body to make proclamation. First are,

The proclamation was read, (heads uncovered,) first at the upper end of the fair, next in the Mead where the pottery and coal fair were held, and last at a little inn near the horse fair, in which place a "Pied-poudre" court was held during the fair, for deciding disputes between buyers and sellers, and for punishing abuses and breaches of the peace in a summary way—stocks and a whipping-post being placed before the door for that purpose. Here the mayor and the cavalcade partook of some refreshment.