THE Wychwood Forest Fair returns to its spiritual home this weekend, when the Cornbury Park estate, near Charlbury, hosts the event.

The fair, which celebrates the natural world and the people living in the area of the old Royal hunting forest of Wychwood, was revived in 2000 to promote and raise money for the work of the Wychwood Project, which conserves the area.

It has had to move from Foxburrow Wood, off Crawley Road on the edge of Witney, where it has been held for the past four years, after the planting of 20,000 trees meant there was no longer room on the site to accommodate the thousands of visitors and attractions at the fair.

The fair can trace its history back to the 1700s. It was traditionally held at Newhill Plain, a clearing in the Wychwood Forest near Cornbury Park, but it was banned in 1856 by the Wychwood Forest ranger, Lord Churchill, because of “crime and debauchery”.

The fair is on Sunday, from 11am to 5pm. Tickets cost £7, with under-12s admitted free of charge. 

There will be displays of rural crafts, morris dancing, storytelling, Aunt Sally, ferret racing, Hatwell's fun fair, children’s games and a bar run by Witney's Wychwood Brewery.