O Once I was a Shepherd Boy
Six for Gold track 7
Collected by Cecil Sharp from Shadrack Hayden at Bampton in Oxfordshire, 6th September 1909. Shadrack Hayden was better known as Shepherd Hayden: born at Lyford, Berkshire in 1826, he shepherded at Hatford near Faringdon before moving to Bampton in 1891. The song appears to be a local composition: the first verse mentions Compton Down and Ilsley (these days just off the A34 going north from Newbury) a few miles from where Hayden was born. It is likely that he learned this song when he was himself a young shepherd boy.
East Ilsley, though a small village, was for centuries home to a major sheep fair - claimed to have been the second largest in the country, after London's Smithfield market. In the 1880s, some 20 000 sheep were changing hands in a single day. The fair came to an end in 1934 but it was resurrected in the 1970s as a country fair / village fete. You can find more information at http://www.east.ilsley.btinternet.co.uk/fairs.htm
Alfred Williams also noted down the words of the song from Shepherd Hayden, under the title On Compton Downs.
Sheep fair at East Ilsley, Berkshire - from English Heritage ViewFinder site