Hitchin market
Hitchin Market is currently open on Tuesday and Saturday with a wide range of stalls from fruit and vegetables to carpets, clothes and household implements. Friday sees an antique market taking over the stalls.
The weekly market at Hitchin seems to have been held on a Tuesday from time immemorial. With the passage of time the stalls, which had been set up for trading in the broad and lengthy main street, running from Silver Street to Tilehouse Street, began to take on a more permanent character. The stallholders no longer removed their stalls after the market was over.
Some even began to both work and live at their stalls; others converted the ground floors of their existing houses into primitive shops. Not only were the market streets built over, but also the spaces between the earlier houses were also filled in to give a continuous line of stalls or shops facing towards the street.
By the end of the 14th century very little remained of Hitchin’s original single main street: in 1470 there is evidence of continuous tenure of at least two stalls in the town which even then had been leased for 40 years.
Markets and Fairs
Markets and Fairs have been held in England since Saxon times, to provide a means of barter and trade. Markets were originally for localised trading, while Fairs were for larger scale commerce.
Both markets and fairs existed
side by side from the very earliest days of exchanging goods and services.
They provided outlets to the local craftsmen, to travelling chapman or pedlars,
and to householders and small farmers, where beasts and surplus products could
be sold and purchased.
The distance a person could walk in a day, to and from the market, determined how far the early early market towns of 12th century England were from each other. The more perishable items sold in the market, such as vegetables, dairy products and fruit, were not carried great distances because of the primitive travelling conditions: livestock, grain and wool, on the other hand, were goods that would travel great distances without deteriorating, and therefore probably came from much further afield.
There was also products of the local Hitchin craftsmen — tanners, weavers, smiths, shoemakers, tailors — nearly all of which were made locally and sold for use within an area surrounding the town.
Market people
No market consisted entirely of goods for sale; there were also the rogues, vagabonds, chapman and pedlars of all kinds, quack doctors, fortune tellers, tumblers, minstrels, dancers and many others who made market days ones of fun and frolic.
Priority
was always given to local traders, and a bell was always rung before trading
was allowed to begin. At Hitchin a bellhouse was specially built in the centre
of what is now the old market square, to start off buying and selling. A Bellman
or ‘Towler’ (Toller) for the market bell is mentioned in the records
of the town’s manorial courts from the beginning of the 17th century.
At this time other local appointments were made. The Town Crier for spreading news and making announcements, the Leather Searcher and Sealer for approving the tannery products, and the Ale Taster to keep a check on brewing.
| See our picture feature of a day in the life of one Hitchin market trader |
By the 16th century Hitchin was becoming famous as a grain market, particularly for corn, which had been sold here, even then, for over 300 years. Malting and brewing, the two main by-products of a grain market, were also increasing locally.
Queen Elizabeth I acknowledged the importance of Hitchin grain when, after listening to a Spanish Nobleman expounding the qualities of his country’s vineyards, she replied, “My Hitchin grapes surpass them or those of any country”.’
|
On 6th January 1903 the son of Rev. Switzer, Curate of St. Marys Church, was tossed by a frightened cow in Bancroft on market day. |
By the 16th century Hitchin’s corn, barley, wheat, malt and livestock were purchased by wholesalers for reselling in the London markets for profit. In the 19th century strong commercial interests and a developing straw plait market compelled the consideration of Saturday as a second Market day.
By 1829 Hitchin’s Bell House was removed and the Church bells were rung to indicate the start of business. The Saturday market which now developed was more and more concerned with retail trading and commercial interests, while the Tuesday market continued to be essentially concerned with farming and agriculture.
Industrial Revolution
The industrial revolution speeded up the gradual change that had been taking place from market shopping to daily consumer retailing. It was increasingly the more well-to-do who used the shops, while the poor foraged in the markets where bargains were more readily found.
The opening of the Great Northern Railway between London and Peterborough opened up the market for local traders and gave nore options to local farmers.
Change for the livestock market
In 1834 there had been an attempt to revive the wool trade by holding a wool fair on June 26th. Over 24,000 fleeces were offered for sale in Bancroft and 250 farmers lunched at the Sun Hotel.
Around 1856 there was a movement to get the livestock market, which for centuries had been held in Bancroft, moved to a more suitable site off the town’s main street. In 1857 proposals were made to transfer the cattle market to an area between West Lane and Old Park Row (later Road). This met with great resistance from locals and traders. There are currently plans to relocate the market which have also met with resistance.
Between the wars the general market continued on Tuesdays and Saturdays in the square in front of the Corn Exchange. Traffic continued to flow diagonally across, between High Street and Sun Street, passing slowly between the lines of stalls around which crowded the many bargain hunters. In the winter months when it grew dark, the stallholders lit their acetylene burners and trading continued in the flickering light.
New era for the market
The 1960s and 70s were really a re-birth for the market. The whole pattern of shopping and retailing was changing with increasing numbers of supermarkets and the gradual extinction of the small trader.
The
new town of Stevenage gave new life to Hitchin’s general market, as the
many Londoners who came to live there found in the St. Mary’s Square
market something of the flavour of Petticoat Lane and the London street markets.
The people flocked to Hitchin by the hundred on Tuesdays and Saturdays, filling
the huge square to overflowing.
In 1973 a new shopping precinct and permanent market stalls were opened, filling up what was once the town’s Great Yard. Thus began a new era in the story of Hitchin Market, a story which had begun at least a thousand years earlier. Recent proposed changes to the market location have had mixed reception from market traders and locals, showing that passions for the market will remain into the future.
Source: "A Brief History of Hitchin Markets and Fairs" by Anthony M. Foster. available from Eric T. Moore Bookshop, Bridge Street.
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