Will Ginnett's Circus come to St. Neots again?

It was a dull and damp grey March 2012 day when a splash of circus colour lit up my view down New street. It was half a century before that I was taken to a circus on the same Milk Field. 142 years before I took this photograph locals were enticed to the same family show by the following notice in the St, Neots Advertiser:GINNETTS Grand Cirque L' Imperatrice WILL PAY A VISIT TO ST. NEOTS, Monday, September 26th, 1870 For this season the Messrs. Ginnett have secured at great expense, the wonderful Performing Equestrian Monkey. This monkey has been taught to accomplish all the most difficult feats of the best riders of the day. Another most startling and wonderful performance is that of Riding a Bicycle on a Tight Rope. An expensive engagement for a few weeks, is of a TRIBE OF FEMALE ACROBATS. These Ladies of the Acrobatic and Gymnastic Tribe are alone and unapproachable in their eclipsing performance. These female Sylphs are the admired of all admirers and the admiration of a thronging multitude making you exclaim: “this is the corps the people were delighted to honour; They come with laurels on their brows; Hardly fought for and bravely won” These various acts and scenes in the circle will be enlivened by those necessary appendages of all first-class establishments: FOUR good laughter-provoking CLOWNS. THE PROCESSION will start from the circus at one o'clock (weather permitting), it being; only reasonable that, the weather be unpropitious, this will not take place, as the wardrobe, comprising the finest of silk velvets, silks, satins, and embroidery of gold, silver, &c, together with the steel and chain armour of the knights would be considerably damaged by the inclement weather. N.B.—The whole Establishment will appear in Two Grand Representations daily, commencing at Half-.past Two and Half-past Seven. First-class Seats, 3s. Stalls, 2s. Pit, ls. Promenade and Gallery, 6d. The Ginnett family were part of Napoleons cavalry who were captured and taken to England. Some stayed on after Waterloo and began a circus which became one of the largest in the country by the 1890’s. Still going today it is hoping to survive the current pandemic. If, like me, you have fond memories of the big-top record your memories and add a bit more colour to the St. Neots Museum archives.