The Hoppings

The Hoppings is an annual travelling funfair held on the Town Moor in Newcastle upon Tyne, during the last week in June.

[5] Writing in 1828, Parson and White explain that: 'Hopping, in Durham and Northumberland, is a local term signifying a feast, merry-meeting, dancing or parish wake'.

The name may simply derive from the Middle English word "hoppen" meaning to dance, hop, leap, bound or bounce.

[13] In 1908 a fountain was erected at the top of Forsyth Road Jesmond in memory of Alderman William Davies Stephens who, as chairman of the Temperance Festival Association, had led the move to establish the Hoppings.

[14] The fair took place at Jesmond Dene from 1914 to 1918 and returned to the more spacious Town Moor, just north of the city centre, in 1919.

[citation needed] There was no Festival on the Moor between 1920 and 1923, but it returned in June 1924, where it continued annually until 1946; a non-Showmen's Guild Fair was held that year but proved to be unpopular.

It was decided to move the date for this year only to the 19 to 30 August to allow for the government's 4-stage plan to ease Covid pandemic restrictions to be successfully rolled out.