Note Note — No 16 WIDDECOMBE FAIR

16. Widdecombe Fair. At present the best known and most popular of Devonshire songs, though the melody is without particular merit. The original "Uncle Tom Cobley" lived in a house near Yeoford Junction, in the parish of Spreyton. His will was signed on January 20, 1787, and was proved on March 14, 1794. He was a genial old bachelor. Mr. Samuel Peach, his oldest relation living, tells me, "My great-uncle, who succeeded him, with whom I lived for some years, died in 1843, over eighty years of age; he married, but left no children." We have obtained numerous variants of the air, one taken down from R. Bickle, Two Bridges, is an early form of the melody; but as that we give is familiar to most Devonshire men, we have retained it. The names in the chorus all belonged to residents at Sticklepath.