M is for markets

Our series of posts helping you to explore our county is an A-Z of Bedfordshire places, landscapes and history. Each post includes tips for walks and places to visit.

This instalment looks at Bedfordshire’s history as an agricultural county of small market towns where goods and services could be exchanged, bought or sold. It explores five key buildings which shine a light on the story.

Market Charters

Medieval Market Charters gave towns the right to hold a market and were granted by the monarch. Bedford’s Market Charter was granted by Henry II in 1166, Ampthill’s dates from 1219 and Biggleswade’s from 1227. This control allowed the monarch to set the geographical distribution of markets and collect their grants. Officially designating markets also allowed local lords or abbeys to collect their tolls, provided a safer place to do business and made the sale of stolen goods more difficult. They were originally often held on Sundays but by the thirteenth century weekdays were more popular. Goods of all kinds were available, with some places specialising in certain trades. Luton became known for its straw plait market, the stalls lining George Street before the building of the Plait Halls. The larger market towns of Bedford, Luton, Dunstable, Biggleswade and Leighton Buzzard provided people with more choice and served a wider area than those held in smaller towns and villages.

Leighton Buzzard Market Cross

A market has been held in Leighton Buzzard since at least 1086, and possibly as far back as the Anglo-Saxon period. The Market Cross dates from the fifteenth century and may have replaced an earlier structure, although there is no evidence for this. Leighton Buzzard was a thriving agricultural market town, and its Cross was funded by Alice Chaucer, the granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote ‘The Canterbury Tales.’ Town charters set out precisely where and when markets could be held and Market Crosses like this one were used to mark the official site of the market square.

Elstow Moot Hall

The red brick, timber framed Moot Hall was built in around 1500. It was designed as a Market House and was built on the village green for the nuns of Elstow Abbey. Their Royal Charter granted them the right to hold an annual four-day fair at the beginning of May. These fairs were large commercial events where livestock, clothes, food and all manner of goods could be bought and sold. The Abbey could charge rents for stalls and booths, as well as tolls for entry. The nuns may also have sold produce from their gardens or fishponds. The Moot Hall, or Green House as it was known in the early days, provided four shop units on the ground floor, with storage space for stalls and other equipment. It was extended a century later to provide another two shop fronts. During the fairs, the upper floor was used as a Pie Powder Court where pickpockets and traders breaching rules on weights and measures could be dealt with. From 1812 the Elstow Bunyan Meeting met in the Moot Hall and today it is a museum focusing on seventeenth century rural life.

Harrold Buttermarket

Villages like Harrold were local trading centres and often had their own market charters. The octagonal Buttermarket or Market House on the triangular village green was built in the first half of the eighteenth century. Although the market appears to have been relatively small scale in this period with perhaps just a couple of butchers trading, there was also a regular horse fair in the village where horses were bought and sold.

Woburn Market House

Another village that held a market charter was Woburn. It was granted by Henry III in 1242, with the tolls belonging to the Abbey. By the end of the fifteenth century the thriving marketplace was attracting visitors and pilgrims and so permanent shops as well as inns began to spring up. A red brick Market House was built in the 1730s, with the lower part of the building providing space for local butchers. It was replaced with a new building in 1820 after the old one fell into disrepair. Like many former market houses, the building was later repurposed as the Town Hall, which also held the Woburn Institute Library, and then again later for retail use.

Bedford Corn Exchange

The current Corn Exchange replaced an earlier building on the other side of St Paul’s Square. Originally known as the Floral Hall, it had been built in 1849 but quickly became too small and the larger premises were opened by the Duke of Bedford in 1874. Corn exchanges were places where corn merchants could meet with farmers to buy and sell wheat, barley and other cereal crops. The indoor market provided an attractive alternative to the open-air stalls of the market outside and was more expensive at three guineas a year as opposed to £2, 12 shillings a year outside. Bedford’s Corn Exchange became a concert venue and during the Second World War the BBC Symphony Orchestra broadcast public concerts from the hall. Glenn Miller gave his last concert before he disappeared here, an event commemorated by a memorial plaque.

Today

Many of Bedfordshire’s historic market towns are still home to markets of various kinds, from regular Charter Markets to farmers markets and other special events.

Exploring Bedfordshire’s market history

• Leighton Buzzard’s Living History Trail and Curiosity Spotter Trail both feature the Market Cross.
• Visit Elstow Moot Hall.
• The Harrold-Odell circular walk (6 miles) takes in the Buttermarket.
• Explore Woburn village at your own pace or use one of the walks on the village website.
• A self-guided trail leaflet (PDF) explores Bedford’s history, including the Corn Exchange: bedford-history-self-guided-walk