On 20 November, St. Edmunds day, each year, the market square is closed off to traffic so that a fun fair can be held. This is the modern survival of an ancient custom. In earlier centuries the fair lasted several days and may have been wholly or partly held on a field on the south side of the town called fairfield. In the 20th century this field was used for allotments, and is now housing and the Fairfield Medical Centre. Local tradition tells of a lost charter for the fair, but this is myth because it was determined by travelling justices of King Edward I in 1275 that the fair, then lasting eight days, had already been in existence since time immemorial and no royal charter was needed. At that time tolls on stalls for the sale of cattle provided an income for the lord of the manor. The traders of Arundel claimed a right to sell their wares at the fair as Petwoth was in the Honour of Arundel