what’s in A tiltyard?: Mercer fairground

fredericksburg sketches

On a lovely autumn day, colorful pennants flutter in the breeze. The crowd grows large, and a bit nervous. The seconds tick by, endlessly. Children are hoisted atop their parents' shoulders to see what's about to happen. Suddenly a handkerchief falls to the ground, and the action is on. Two heavily armored knights on horseback gallop furiously towards one another, lances leveled ...

Imagine the incredible force of two knights on horseback, combined weight of more than a ton, thundering towards each other at high speed. The force of impact - a head-on collision concentrated at the tip of that lance -- is simply colossal.

An ancient form of combat adapted for entertainment, jousting was done in a field called a "tiltyard" . We know about early tiltyards from Medieval times. Famously, evidence of the tiltyard of King Henry VIII was recently discovered at Greenwich Palace by archaeologist Simon Withers, using ground penetrating radar. While competing in a joust there in 1536, the King was severely injured in a nasty fall from his horse. Some scholars believe his jousting accident caused a traumatic brain injury; a turning point that permanently changed the King's personality, and with it, the trajectory of English history. But that's another story. Jousting in Virginia was an extremely popular spectator sport in the first half of the 1800s, but it differed from Medieval jousting. Instead of two armored knights trying to unseat each other, a single rider festooned in colorful attire (not armor) attempted to drive his lance through brass rings suspended along the tiltyard in front of the judge's area. The horseman who speared the most rings was declared the winner, entitling him to dance with the maiden of his choice at a grand ball afterwards. This was the civilized form of the sport: nimble horsemanship and a cool hand was the order of the day.

At Fredericksburg ' s Agricultural Fair in the 1850s, "ring tournaments" were held at Mercer Fairgrounds, located near the Stratton House and Innis House. Also known as Mercer Square, this was a 10 acre enclosure bounded roughly by today ' s Mercer, Weedon, Wolfe, and Shepherd Streets. A tall, sturdy wooden fence of vertical boards surrounded the site, which kept out prying eyes (and discouraged young rascals from avoiding the main gates).

Mercer Fairgrounds was essentially a split-level piece of open ground. Researchers believe that the lower (or downhill) part, roughly between Littlepage and Weedon Streets, housed the stables, watering troughs, blacksmith, and latrines. The upper part, between Littlepage and Shepherd Streets, is likely the site of the tiltyard and spectator area.

At the start of the Civil War, the land became a Confederate training camp (see sketch), and months later, a bloody battlefield. After the Civil War, the site of the old fairgrounds began to sprout houses, and today the terrain is completely covered by the Fairview Neighborhood.

Interestingly, the carousel ride we enjoy at amusement parks today -- on some carousels you can even reach for a brass ring -- likely evolved in the late 1800s from the "ring tournament" form of jousting; so in a sense, the sport still lives on for children of all ages!

So what's in a Tiltyard? Here, a once-lively place that rests now, silently, just beneath our feet.