The Richmond May Fair is over fifty years old and is the town's biggest community event. Welcoming thousands of visitors and giving local charities the opportunity to publicise their work and raise much needed funding. Our next fair is 8 May 2027!  

 

A brief history of the Fair

The Richmond May Fair began just over fifty years ago with a few stalls around St Mary Magdalene Church and became so popular that it now fills Richmond Green. It is the town's biggest community event and gives local charities the opportunity to publicise their work and raise much needed funding.  

 

When Liz Carran and Peter Forster, who had organised it for many years, retired in 2018, Be Richmond stepped in so there could be a Fair in 2019. The Richmond May Fair has always been run by volunteers and in 2023 a new Community Group was formed and after a three year gap, The Richmond May Fair was revived! In 2025 the Fair established a Charity Fund and made small grants to nineteen charities

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The recent fairs have been very successful

The fair has only been growing. The 2025 Richmond May Fair was a huge success. Brilliant sunshine, 250 charity and small business stalls and over 5,000 visitors. A full day’s free entertainment with local bands, school choirs and dance groups. Great food and drink, a new Pimms Bar partnering with Marshgate School and three charity barbecues serving over 2,000 burgers and sausages. As usual the Dog Show attracted plenty of enthusiastic participants giving judge Ian Stroud from Pet People a difficult job choosing the winners.
 

Similarly, visitors to the 2026 Fair enjoyed a hugely successful fair with marvellous weather, an expanded selection of artisan and charity stalls, an even wider range of international cuisine, traditional fun fair with a Big Wheel as well as the Victorian carousel. The Dog Show concluded with a new attraction, The Sausage Game.

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As always, the Fair featured a varied programme of free live entertainment broadcast live by Riverside Radio. By popular demand the world-famous Hammersmith Morris Men performed throughout the day around the Green and the London Children’s Literature Festival brought Pip and Posy to meet our younger visitors.

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The bells of St Mary Magdalene Church traditionally ring in the May Fair and this year the church was supporting its fundraising campaign to replace their real bells by bringing portable bells, a mobile belfry, to the Green and visitors had the rare opportunity to try their hand at bell ringing themselves.​

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We look forward to another great event in 2027 and welcoming you there!

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  The Richmond May Fair Committee