Harborne Carnival 2006

For 12 years Harborne Carnival has been a one-day affair, set up along the High Street from the Junction pub to the Green Man pub. With an extensive funfair down the one side of the road and every inch of the remaining pavements covered in charity & local traders' stalls, it became the biggest one-day festival in Europe (apparently).

These pictures are from the arrival and build-up of the rides & stalls of the funfair, all photos were taken during a number of walks up & down the High St starting just after 6 am and finishing around 9.30 am.

My interest is in the equipment (the rides & stalls) and how it fits together and in the vehicles the showmen use, many of which have been specially built or specially adapted to fit their use. I am not really interested in visiting operating funfairs.

The Fun Fair in Harborne High Street is organised by Robert Wilkinson and "let" to two family groups - Wilkinson's funfair including the Keyes family and Anthony Harris trading as Pat Collins including the Charles Harris family. The two family groups supply the major rides and "sub-let" space to other ride and/or stall operators. Generally, the Harris associates occupy the space from The Green Man to St John's Road and the Wilkinson associates occupy the space from St Johns Road to The Junction (including The Varsity [as was] car-park).

The Carnival opened for business at 10.30 and closed bang on 5 pm ......and by 7 pm it was all gone again and save for the litter, you would never know anything had happened. By 2012 it was reported that in excess of 80,000 people turned out for this great one day of fun, raising £1000's for charity & local good causes.

The following slideshow will auto-load each image, or you can click on any of the buttons "circles" to see a specific image - all showing the set up of the Fun Fair and a small collection of military vehicles that eventually were displayed in York St close to the White Horse pub.