The Hoppings: Europe's Largest Travelling Funfair on Newcastle's Town Moor

For most of the year the Town Moor is quiet common land, grazed by cattle a stone's throw from the middle of Newcastle. Then, for around ten days each June, it becomes the biggest travelling funfair in Europe. The Hoppings brings hundreds of rides, food stalls and showpeople onto the grass at the top of the city, and pulls in something like 300,000 visitors across its run. If you have lived in Newcastle you will know the sound of it drifting over Spital Tongues on a summer evening; if you are new to the city, this is the fair everyone means when they say "the Moor".

What The Hoppings is

The Hoppings is a travelling fair rather than a permanent theme park, assembled on the Town Moor and taken down again once it closes. In recent years the line-up has run to more than 400 rides and attractions, from towering thrill rides and rollercoasters down to the carousel, waltzers, dodgems, hook-a-duck stalls and the smell of candyfloss and fried onions that comes with all of it. It is run in association with the Showmen's Guild of Great Britain, and many of the families who bring their rides here have been doing so for generations.

Entry to the fair is free. You pay per ride and per attraction once you are inside, usually by buying tokens or paying at each ride, so how much a visit costs is really up to you. That makes it easy to wander in for an hour, have a look around and buy a couple of rides without committing to a big day out.

When it happens

The Hoppings comes to the Town Moor each June, traditionally in the last full week of the month, and runs for roughly nine or ten days. Exact dates shift from year to year, so if you are planning ahead it is worth checking the organisers' current announcement rather than relying on last year's calendar. The fair keeps long hours through the day into the evening, and the atmosphere changes as the light goes: quieter and more family-friendly in the afternoon, busier and brighter once the rides are lit up after dark.

Best for: Weekday afternoons early in the run are the calmest time to visit with younger children. The Saturdays draw the biggest crowds.

Getting there from the city centre

The great thing about The Hoppings is how central it is. The Town Moor sits directly above the city centre, and the simplest approach on foot is to walk up from Haymarket, past the universities and the Civic Centre, to the Grand Parade end of the Moor. It is a walk of only around ten to fifteen minutes from Monument, which means you can combine the fair with an afternoon in town.

By Metro, Haymarket is the station to aim for, putting you a short walk from the southern edge of the Moor. There is limited parking near the site during the fair and the surrounding streets get busy, so public transport or walking up from the centre is almost always the easier choice. If you are coming with a pushchair or want a gentler route, the paths through neighbouring Exhibition Park, just to the west, give a pleasant green approach and somewhere to sit down away from the noise.

What to expect on the day

The Hoppings is loud, bright and packed, and that is the whole point of it. Alongside the rides there is a long line of food stalls, live entertainment and the traditional fairground games. Cash is still handy for smaller stalls, though many rides now take cards. It is genuinely all-ages: little ones have the gentler roundabouts and the fun house, teenagers have the big thrill rides, and there is enough to look at that even people who do not fancy the rides tend to enjoy the wander.

Best for: Wear sturdy footwear. The Town Moor is grass, and a wet June can turn the ground muddy underfoot in a hurry.

The heritage behind it

The fair is much older than the rides suggest. The Hoppings traces back to 1882, when it grew out of the Temperance Festival, a Victorian event meant to offer wholesome entertainment as an alternative to the pub during race week. That origin is why it landed on the Town Moor in the first place, and it has returned to the same common most years since, making it one of the longest-running events in the city's calendar. The name itself is thought to come from the old word for the dancing and merrymaking that went with country fairs. More than a century on, it is still a fixture of the Newcastle summer, and for a lot of families a trip to the Moor in June is simply what you do.

Making a day of it

Because the Moor is so close to the centre, The Hoppings slots neatly into a wider day out. You can spend the morning around Grey Street and the shops, walk up through the university quarter, and arrive at the fair for the afternoon. Exhibition Park next door has its lake and open space if you want a breather, and the museums and galleries around Haymarket give you an indoor option if the weather turns, which in a Newcastle June it very well might.

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