Mill Road Winter Fair is a celebration of community along one of the most diverse and vibrant roads in Cambridge. Held on the first Saturday of December, the Fair brings together local businesses and organisations, shops and stallholders, musicians, artists and dancers in one day of festival joy.

2021: Saturdays, stalls and singing

Ongoing uncertainty over Covid-19 has sadly led to the cancellation of the 2021 Mill Road Winter Fair. However, this year’s Fair will be replaced by Mill Road Saturdays – a series of small, Covid-safe events to be held on Donkey Common and Petersfield on 9th October, 6th November and 4th December.

Featuring craft and charity stalls, buskers and a fabulous ‘street’ of community bunting, Mill Road Saturdays will be a celebratory gateway to the diversity of Mill Road. These events will be held at Donkey Common (outside Parkside Swimming Pool) and Petersfield, with lines of community bunting at The Edge Café also marking the Romsey gateway to Mill Road. A closer look at the bunting will reveal an I Spy Mill Road trail which encourages people to explore Mill Road at their leisure, discovering its shops, cafés, pubs and restaurants.

Mill Road Saturdays will be the first of many events organised by Mill Road Fringe, a spin-off from the Fair Committee. Further information about timings, stalls and entertainment for Mill Road Saturdays will be announced later in the summer.

Are you a stall holder?

Unlike the Mill Road Winter Fair, which has lots of space to showcase the wonderful products made by our creative local community, Mill Road Saturdays has limited space for stalls. We are therefore unable to operate an open application process for stalls and will, instead, be inviting a number of craft and charity stalls to participate in each event. We are unable to host food and drink stalls and are not able to invite these vendors to join us at Mill Road Saturdays.

Are you a performer or busker?

There will be a limited number of busking slots available on Donkey Common on each of the Mill Road Saturdays. We will be inviting local performers to join us at these events

The 2020 Fair: Virtually brilliant

In 2020, the Mill Road Winter Fair could not take place due to Covid-19. Instead, we held our first Online Fair featuring many of the local performers, artists, stalls and organisations who would have been there on the day.

The Online Fair gave a glimpse of the very special atmosphere of the Mill Road Winter Fair. From awesome local art to fantastic seasonal gifts to purchase, from sensational musical performances to historical talks, plus exciting experiments and craft activities for children.
Naomi Davies
We also coordinated an amazing community event to celebrate and showcase the identity and culture of Mill Road. Fun for all the family, the Mill Road Lantern Trail was funded by the charity, Love Mill Road.

Ten stunning community lanterns, representing ten local roads, were hung in shops along Mill Road and illuminated from what would have been Fair day, 5th December.

An illustrated trail accompanied the lanterns. It provided fascinating detail about a number of Mill Road’s best-loved buildings through historical Mill Road stories.

Get involved

The Winter Fair is run entirely by volunteers and we need your donations to help stage it every year. If you would like to get involved or donate, we would very much appreciate it. We need you to help us keep this wonderful Fair going. Donations to Love Mill Road help to fund the Fair, as well as the activities and projects of other Mill Road charities and community organisations, and are eligible for Gift Aid.
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Updates

Ongoing uncertainty over Covid-19 has sadly led to the cancellation of the 2021 Mill Road Winter Fair. However, this year’s Fair will be replaced by Mill Road Saturdays – a series of small, Covid-safe events to be held on Donkey Common and Petersfield on 9th October, 6th November and 4th December.

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Penny Sobr, the artist who created our wonderful lanterns in 2020, showed a couple of the lanterns at local schools recently. She said: “There were cries of oohs and aahs… the children really loved them! It was so lovely to see their reaction and wonderful that they inspire young people.”

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This year’s Mill Road Winter Fair AGM was held via Zoom on Tuesday 23 March at 7.30pm.

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The Mill Road Winter Fair Committee were extremely saddened to hear of the death of Allan Brigham. Please take a moment to read our tribute to this remarkable Mill Road ambassador.