Hurstpierpoint's St Lawrence Fair

Welcome to Hurst Life’s St Lawrence Fair event page. Here you will find our most recent information for everything regarding the fair.

Since the 14th century, the village of Hurstpierpoint has celebrated the Feast of St Lawrence with a village fair. The fair is one of the oldest in the United Kingdom.

See also, St Lawrence Fair

St Lawrence Fair 2026 news will appear here when available!

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By Lona McDonald

We’ve been a little quiet in the last couple of months, but you’ll slowly start to see activities picking up, with requests for help, fund raising activities and more - look out for our ever-popular Quiz night in the New Year.

Following the AGM in October, we would like to welcome back many of our previous Committee members who are staying with us for another year and a huge thank you to those who have stepped down. We also offer heartfelt thanks to all of our volunteers who helped out in the run up to the Fair and over Fair weekend itself - we couldn’t do it without you all!
We’re also pleased to confirm the Executive Committee for 2026:
Chair: Lona McDonald
Treasurer: Simon Winnard
Secretary: Paul Melling

An enormous thank you to Nic and Rachael for all their years on the Committee in various roles and for making the fair the fabulous weekend it is - thankfully they’re not going far and will still be involved in various ways - they are big shoes to fill! As always, we’re looking for more volunteers to join us, either as part of the Committee, in any way in the background or ad hoc as we get closer to and on Fair Day. Our Committee Meetings will start in January.

Some of the roles and areas we would value support in are:
• Health & Safety
• Volunteer coordinator
• Procession Lead
• Fun run co-lead
And there are many other ways a little more ‘behind the scenes’ you can be involved as well.

Now, this is where we’d like your input, as it is your Fair: we’re inviting suggestions for the 2026 theme…so please let us have your thoughts and suggestions either by email at stlawrencefair@gmail.com, or through our social media sites or our website stlawrencefair.co.uk
Depending on how many suggestions we get, we will either stick them all into a hat, or put out for a vote - any suggestions to be submitted by the end of December. If you’d like to find out more, please get in touch by email at stlawrencefair@gmail.com - we look forward to hearing from you.

Hurst Village Market launches at the New Inn this December 4th 2021

A new village market is launching this month in Hurstpierpoint, just in time for Christmas. The market is a triple partnership between The New Inn, @Shop_Hurst, an Instagram account which promotes local retailers, and Hurst Rethink.

After meeting earlier this year and realising how much they had in common, all three organisations decided to join forces and collaborate to bring local producers and crafters together once a month to the village. The first market will be Saturday 4th December, held in the marquee at The New Inn from 10am-1pm. If all goes well, the team hopes to hold the market on the first Saturday of every month, bringing more local producers in as time goes on.

The hope is that the market will drive footfall to the village, benefitting other retailers on the High Street. Several local Hurst traders are already confirmed for the December market including Wolstonbury Co vineyard, Auroras Bathtime Treats and Winser Grayling plants. Other traders include Scrapless zero waste shop from Burgess Hill and BlushBakesByRach cakes.

Charlotte from Hurst Rethink comments, “The Hurst Rethink Green Consumer group has been looking at how we make it easier to buy local without having to get in our cars and drive out of the village. This market is the perfect solution and we’re thrilled to be working with @shop_hurst and the New Inn - we share the same vision and desire to get stuff done!” The New Inn team will be serving breakfasts and refreshments throughout the morning. This first market is very much a trial to see how well it might go down in the village so please do come along and support it. If you’re out on the High Street on Saturday morning, we’d love to see you.

Hurst's central pub - the New Inn

I met Murray at the New Inn on a Monday, so we had the place to ourselves. “For some reason the whole of Hurst seems to shut down on this day; we kept open for a few years on Mondays but in the end it wasn’t worth it.” Many business owners have had ups and downs over the last 18 months and none more so than landlords and he very much hopes that by the time you are reading this, there will be punters standing at the bar again, being served drinks.

He grew up in Surrey and his first job was in a bank in Clacton-on-Sea, ‘in the days when you could get a bank job with O’levels.’ He progressed to a finance company in the Midlands, specialising in asset finance for the printing industry, which 25 years ago was thriving. Nearly 15 years ago he and his wife Chris moved to the village, at the far end of Langton Lane and the New Inn became his pub of choice. “It’s smack in the centre of Hurst and it’s got a massive amount of history. It seems every other customer who comes in here to drink has either worked here or slept upstairs at some point during their lives, so everybody knows it.”

Then one day the landlord announced he was selling, and he thought ‘well maybe I could do that, and wind down a bit’, rather than try to pursue a career that was essentially finished, due the internet and advanced home printing. So, he took the plunge and bought it in 2016. “I didn’t quite get that right, if I’m honest with you, as I’ve had to wind up rather than down! This is a full-time occupation and there’s no other way around it.” Like many landlords and B&B owners who had envisaged a quiet life leading into retirement, he had a rude awakening. “I thought I could dip in and out; when you’re the wrong side of the bar you think you could do it, but there’s so much involved in running a successful pub.”

It became clear to them early on that living two miles away was not working out, so they renovated the four-bedroom flat above the pub and rented their house out, an arrangement that comes to an end this month. Chris is a music teacher by profession but gave up and joined the business to help Murray run it. “We went from a situation living in Langton Lane where we never saw anybody from one day to the next to here where we now know everybody. And I love it, walking down the street saying good morning to everybody and everybody’s friendly, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.

Turn to page 18 of August’s Hurst Life to learn more about the life of a landlord and his dogs.