This wonderful old photograph of a busy Fair Day in Newtown's High Street was taken around 1880.
It was once the usual practice to hold cattle markets, horse sales, and other livestock sales in the main street of market towns in country districts. These were often combined with market stalls selling foodstuffs and other goods, as seen in this picture.

You can see that these Fair Days turned the town into a pretty lively place with a lot of interesting things going on.
The official records of Victorian schools in country areas all complain regularly about children being absent from school because it was a local Fair Day, and some local boys can be seen in this picture !
It wasn't a good idea to carry on holding livestock markets in the middle of the main street when motor traffic came along after the end of the Victorian age. Special cattle markets began to be built in most market towns, with enclosures to stop the animals from wandering about !

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