MENTION has been made before about the innovative transformation into business use of the wasted space in the arches beneath Worcester’s railway viaduct.

And it’s quite a change from what was there a hundred years ago which was a funfair.

Not a noisy, whirling gallopers, clattering bumper cars, flashing lights and Del Shannon’s Runaway played at full volume funfair, but a sleeping funfair in winter storage.

Because that’s where Strickland’s Amusements hunkered down in the off-season.

The man behind the operation was Harry Strickland who had been born only a stone’s throw away from the arches in Dolday, one of Worcester’s poorest quarters, in 1860.

Harry began life making money as a fruit dealer but all that changed when he married Damaris Fletcher.

His bride was from a gypsy family who ran a travelling funfair and she persuaded new husband Harry they could do that. And so it came to pass.

The young couple’s fair had a three-abreast galloping horses carousel, a shooting gallery, coconut shy, swing boats, a try your strength stall and ice cream carts.

It wasn’t long before Strickland’s Amusements became a popular sight at town and village fairs across the Midlands, especially Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire.

Pitchcroft, Worcester, and Malvern Link Common were popular venues.

The gentry even booked the fair for events held in the grounds at their country houses and mansions.

Which were a world away from the Strickland family home in a large lodging house in Newport Street, Worcester, in the heart of Dolday.

Harry and Damaris had nine children but because of their travelling lifestyle several arrived into the world in the family’s own traditional gypsy caravan, their home when they were on the road.

One child even had a middle name denoting where she was born – Flora Mathon Strickland!

Strickland’s Fair operated from the 1880s until 1935 and for the entire time used horses to pull its caravans and trailers although in 1907 there was one significant concession to mechanisation.

That year the family bought a huge Burrell traction engine, the first showman’s steam engine to be brought into Worcestershire.

It generated power to run and illuminate much of the funfair, a bioscope show and also a light show called Strickland’s Palace of Light.

Remember at this time domestic electric lighting was a novelty so 'a palace of light' would be wonderous indeed.

The traction engine was named Pride of Worcestershire but after the outbreak of World War I it was commissioned by the military and taken to France to help tow heavy arms and equipment.

Wounded in action, it was once seen lying on its side in a French ditch.

Remarkably, the old engine was returned to Stricklands after the war and remained in work until the funfair closed in 1935.

It was sold off and fell into disrepair for a while but there is a happy ending.

Because it was saved, restored and now appears at traction engine rallies in the south of England.

Meanwhile, the space it once occupied underneath the arches in Worcester is now a yoga studio.

Different times.