St Giles Fair had a part to play in the Otmoor riot of 1830 against enclosure of land, writes CHRIS KOENIG

The St Giles Fair of 1830 must have been one to remember. On September 6 that year wagonloads of rioters, guarded by soldiers, were ferried into Oxford from remote and lonely Otmoor, that hauntingly beautiful stretch of fenland which to this day is not crossed by any road.

The 41 captives were alleged ringleaders of the 1,000 or so inhabitants of the so-called "seven Otmoor towns" - Beckley, Charlton, Horton-cum-Studley, Oddington, Murcott, Noke, and Fencott - who had earlier that day heard the Riot Act read to them after they marched the seven-mile circuit of the moor, pulling down every fence they came across.

The captives were poor people facing ruin as a result of attempts to enclose the moor and thereby deprive them of their rights to common land. They were on their way to Oxford Gaol, escorted by a platoon of the Oxfordshire Militia, when crowds attending the fair set upon the soldiers in Beaumont Street - and set them all free.

The people of the seven towns believed that Our Lady of Otmoor had long ago, in Norman times perhaps, ridden the circuit of the Moor and given the land to the villagers. Certainly there was a Moor Court, consisting of 12 moormen, which upheld the rights of villagers to graze their animals on the land, enforcing strict rules about when and how they did so.

But who was Our Lady of Otmoor? Could she have been the Virgin Mary depicted in the beautiful 14th-century stained-glass window in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Beckley? The window shows the mother of Christ ascending into heaven and throwing down her bright green girdle to St Thomas (Doubting Thomas) below.

A girdle, or belt, apart from being a symbol of virginity, is also a symbol of protection from evil. Interestingly, far away from Beckley, in Prato, Italy, the priests at the cathedral claim to possess that same green girdle. Every year on the Feast of the Assumption (August 15) it is displayed there.

Or might the Lady of Otmoor have been Princess Gundreda, youngest daughter of William the Conqueror, who is said to have once upon a time been the lady of the Manor of Noke? The font in the tiny church of St Giles in that quiet village is reputed to have been a gift from her.

In any case, the Otmoor villages have long been an inspiration for writers. Evelyn Waugh came here to drown his sorrows at the Abingdon Arms, Beckley, after learning that he had only achieved a third-class degree from Oxford University. He later spent his honeymoon at the pub after his marriage in 1928 to Evelyn Gardner. And the 16th-century Beckley Park is said to have been the setting for Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow.

John Buchan lived in nearby Elsfield, where he is buried. The title of The Thirty Nine Steps was suggested by the number of steps at the manor where he lived. Cripps Cottage in Otmoor Lane, Beckley, was immortalised by R.D. Blackmore, author of Lorna Doone, in his novel Cripps the Carrier.

Then there was the Rev Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) who had the inspiration for Alice Through the Looking Glass while looking down at Otmoor from Beckley. At that time, and indeed until the 1960s, the fields on the moor resembled a giant chess board.

Amazingly, the efforts to drain the land and enclose it in the 19th century were largely unsuccessful. Only in the 1960s was the huge abundance of wildlife greatly reduced by drainage which spoiled the patchwork view that Dodgson so admired. Now the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has bought up much of the moor and is endeavouring to restore it.

And for St Giles himself, he is the patron saint of wild game and is portrayed in Noke Church protecting a hunted hind.