Berwick Street Market

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Berwick Street Market
Berwick street market 1.jpg
Berwick Street Market in 2006
Location Berwick Street, Soho
Coordinates 51°30′47″N0°08′04″W / 51.512921°N 0.134365°W / 51.512921; -0.134365
Address Berwick Street, Soho
Opening date1842(182 years ago) (1842)
Management City of Westminster
Owner City of Westminster
EnvironmentOutdoor
Goods soldStreet food, fruit & veg, household goods, fashion
Days normally openMonday to Saturday
Number of tenants40
Website westminster.gov.uk/licensing/markets-and-street-trading
Westminster London UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Berwick Street Market
Location in City of Westminster

Berwick Street Market is an outdoor street market in the Soho area of the City of Westminster. It takes place on Berwick Street. Licences to trade are issued by Westminster City Council.

Contents

History

Before 1867 street trading in London was regarded as a common-law right in London. After being banned for a few week ins late 1867 street trading was regulated by the police with no licensing or regulation other than the size and spacing of pitches. This light-touch regime continues until the London County Council (General Powers) Act 1927 replaced police regulation with a new licensing regime administered by metropolitan borough councils. [1]

From 1867 until 1927, street trading was regulated by the police with no licensing or regulation other than the size and spacing of pitches.

In 1893 the London County Council's Public Control Committee states that the Market had existed since at least 1842 (though it is not listed in Mayhew [2] ) between Broad Street and Peter Street and that the market includes Walker's Court which continues Berwick Street south down to Brewer Street.

At that time there were 32 traders on a Saturday with 20 on weekdays. With the costermongers occupying the west side of the street. Many of the traders had relocated from Seven Dials during the construction of Shaftesbury Avenue. The market was then predominately fresh produce for home and commercial kitchens.

The Saturday traders are summarised as:

Perishable goods
CommodityNumber
Vegetables9
Butchers' meat4
Fruit1
Flowers1
Fish4
Cheesemonger1
Eggs1
Catsmeat2
Non-perishable goods
CommodityNumber
Earthenware3
Haberdashery4
Ironmongery1
Old books1

According to the Public Control Committee, the vestry was opposed to registering or licensing the traders. [3]

The local vestry was of the opinion that the market should be open to all goods except secondhand clothes as they were concerned about infectious diseases following the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak. [4]

In the early 1920s Virginia Woolf often frequented the market and prided herself in her ability to haggle over silk stockings with the market traders who were described at the time as "cosmopolitan—French, Swiss, Italian, Greek and suburban." [5]

Mary Benedetta describes the 1936 market as being quiet compared to a post first world war peak. The fruiterer Jack Smith still held a regular pitch where he would remind customers and of his claim that in 1880 he was the first person in England to retail tomatoes and in 1890 the first to retail grapefruit. [6] [4] [7]

Between the wars the market became renowned for chintzes, satins, furs, and fine silk stockings servicing the theatres and caberets of the West End. Despite this change in emphasis, fresh food remained a presence on the market. It was during the interwar period that Berwick Street became one of the first street markets in London to an electricity supply for traders to illuminate their stalls. [4]

Following the second world war an explosion of department stores along Oxford Street poached the millinery trade away from the market and returned to its late nineteenth century focus of fresh food. [4]

By the mid-nineties the market consisted of over eighty stalls until in 1995 Westminster Council restricted the market to the east side of the street only gradually reducing the number of pitches to 41 through closing the market to new traders. [7]

In the middle of the 2010s Westminster City Council considered turning the market over to a private operator but abandoned the plans following a campaign by local residents and traders and a petition signed by 37,000 people including Joanna Lumley and Stephen Fry. [8] [9]

Transport

Bus

12, 159, 188, 390, and 453.

Railway and tube

The nearest stations are Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus.

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References

  1. ↑ Kelley, Victoria (2019). Cheap Street: London's Street Markets and the Cultures of Informality, c. 1850–1939. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 39.
  2. ↑ Mayhew, Henry (1851). London Labour and the London Poor; a cyclopædia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work. Vol. I. London: G. Woodfall and Son. p. 11. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  3. ↑ Public Control Committee (1893). "Appendix B". London Markets, Special Report of the Public Control Committee Relative to Existing Markets and Market Rights and as to the Expediency of Establishing New Markets in or Near the Administrative County of London (Report). London: London County Council. pp. 43–44.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Bergström, Theo & Forshaw, Alec (1989). The Markets of London (Revised ed.). London: Penguin. pp. 38–40.
  5. ↑ Walkowitz, Judith (19 April 2012). "Virginia Woolf's Soho: Extract From 'Nights Out' by Judith Walkowitz". Yale University Press London Blog. London: Yale University Press London. Archived from the original on 24 February 2024. Retrieved 20 October 2024.
  6. ↑ Benedetta, Mary & Moholy-Nagy, László (1936). The Street Markets of London. London: London John Miles. pp. 53–59. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  7. 1 2 Harriss, Phil (1996). London Markets (1st ed.). London: Cadogan Books. pp. 22–26. ISBN   1-86011-040-1.
  8. ↑ Rustin, Susanna (25 July 2016). "Soho's last stand? Inside the battle to keep Berwick Street market independent". The Guardian . London. Archived from the original on 3 June 2024. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
  9. ↑ Prynn, Jon (22 March 2017). "Victory for Soho's Berwick Street market traders as Westminster council scraps 'privatisation' plans". The Evening Standard . London. Archived from the original on 6 January 2023. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
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