The Pannier Market in Bideford in North Devon is a large covered Victorian pannier market together with the Butcher's Row of small artisan stalls running along the lower level of the Market. [1] There has been a market on the site since 1675. Since 1989 it has been a Grade II listed building on the register of Historic England. [2] [3]
Bideford's market traces its origins to 1204 when Sir Richard Grenville, Lord of the Manor of Bideford, refers to it in a Charter setting out the rights of local people. These rights were confirmed in a Charter of 1272 granted by Henry III at which time the Medieval market was located at the bottom of the present High Street, by the river. These rights were renewed when Bideford received its Charter of Incorporation in 1573 which also established a town council and a Mayor of Bideford. [1]
In 1675 the council moved the market from the High Street to its present site, it then being a collection of stalls with a 'shambles' or butcher's market in one section with the town stocks also bring present. [4]
In 1750 the Manor of Bideford including the market rights passed to the hands of the Cleveland Family of nearby Tapeley Park in Instow. A glimpse of the market at that time is presented by Bideford's first historian, John Watkins, who wrote "It is very well supplied with all kinds of provisions, and at a moderate rate." By the 19th-century market traders were demanding better conditions and in 1825 the market was roofed over for the first time. In 1861 a tourist wrote "The whole building buzzed with a healthy, bustling good humoured crowd of women, and outside were the men, looking after the horse and pony market". Sheep were confined in pens below Victoria Terrace with larger animals tied to hooks once to be found in the wall below the houses. [4]
In 1881 Bideford Town Council purchased the manorial rights for the market from the Cleveland Family [5] who had refused to pay for further repairs and improvements, and between 1883 and 1884 the Council demolished the old structure and built a new market to a design by Newton Abbot-based architect J. Chudley. Built of roughly-coursed stone rubble with dressings of red and cream brick, red terracotta and limestone, [3] the Pannier Market in Bideford opened on 15 April 1884 having been built at a cost of £4,200. [5] In use also as a corn exchange, market days were Tuesdays and Saturdays and were visited by local people and traders from the rural villages around Bideford. Like its sister market at nearby Barnstaple, the building has a glass and timber roof on iron columns. [4]
During the opening celebrations the area around the Pannier Market was decorated with floral garlands while there was a peal of church bells from nearby St Mary's church, a gun salute and a procession with the Mayor of Bideford. A celebratory concert was held as well as a formal dinner for 200 local dignitaries, according to a report in the North Devon Gazette . Later in the week a tea party for 2,000 local children was held. [1]
In 1919 900 recently demobilised servicemen sat down to a celebration dinner in the Market Hall while in 1929 a speech delivered by David Lloyd George in Devonport was relayed to an audience of 4,000 people in the hall. During times of hardship a soup kitchen operated in the hall and in 1942 a British Restaurant offering cheap meals to war workers was opened in the South West corner. [4]
The market passed out of the hands of Bideford Town Council in 1974 when Torridge District Council took over all that body's assets. Moves to privatise the market in the 1980s were defeated and in 1991 Bideford Town Council regained control when it leased the market back and completely refurbished it - an event celebrated each December with a special ceremony. [4]
Butcher's Row is a covered row of 12 small shops devoted to artisan craftspeople but which originally were used by butchers and fishmongers and in some meat hooks are still in situ. Crafts available here include stained glass, hand-crafted jewellery and metal sculptures as well as wood sculptures carved by former Roobarb and Custard animator John Butler [6] [7] and slipware jugs by the notable Devon potter Harry Juniper, [2] [8] both of whom trained at Bideford Art School. In some of the shops you can watch as the craftspeople create their wares. [1] [9]
Butcher's Row is open Mondays to Saturdays throughout the year. [9]
The 1,000 square-metre covered market hall (described in 1889 as occupying '10,500 superficial feet' [5] ) is reached from an external entrance on Honestone Street or from steps up from Butcher's Row. The Market Hall consist of five roof-spans carried on hollow iron columns with moulded caps and bases. These columns were moulded with the inscriptions 'Tardrew & Sons. Ironmongers & Iron Founders. Bideford. 1883' and 'J. H. Foaden. Contractor. Ashburton'. The hall has a floor of cream brick. [3]
It has a wide range of stalls serving fresh local produce, hand-made soft furnishings, toys, locally designed greetings cards, stained glass workshops, gifts and home décor to hand-painted pictures and second-hand books. A café serves a range of food and beverages. [2]
The Market Hall is open Tuesdays to Saturdays throughout the year. [10]
Market Place is a row of seven shops that flanks the entrance to the Market and Butcher's Row on Grenville Street and during the Victorian era the fish market and corn exchange seem to have been at either end. [3] Today these shops retain their original Victorian frontage with large windows and sell a wide range of goods ranging from fishing tackle to collectables and are open six days a week. [1] [9]
The local Council operates a free minibus shuttle service on Tuesdays and Saturdays running every twenty minutes, from 10.00 am to 2.40 pm, to and from the Market from a location on the Quay beside the Charles Kingsley statue at Victoria Park. [10]
Bideford is a historic port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, south-west England. It is the main town of the Torridge local government district.
Great Torrington is a market town in Devon, England. Parts of it are sited on high ground with steep drops down to the River Torridge below, with the lower-lying parts of the town prone to occasional flooding. Torrington is in the centre of Tarka Country, a landscape captured by Henry Williamson in his novel Tarka the Otter in 1927. Great Torrington has one of the most active volunteering communities in the United Kingdom.
Barnstaple is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, but its harbour silted up and other trades developed such as shipbuilding, foundries and sawmills. A Victorian market building survives, with a high glass and timber roof on iron columns. The parish population was 24,033 at the 2011 census, and that of the built-up area 32,411 in 2018. The town area with nearby settlements such as Bishop's Tawton, Fremington and Landkey, had a 2020 population of 46,619.
Sir Richard Grenville, also spelt Greynvile, Greeneville, and Greenfield, was an English privateer and explorer. Grenville was lord of the manors of Stowe, Cornwall and Bideford, Devon. He subsequently participated in the plantations of Ireland specifically the Munster plantations, the English colonisation of the Americas and the repulse of the Spanish Armada.
North Devon is a local government district in Devon, England. North Devon Council is based in Barnstaple. Other towns and villages in the North Devon District include Braunton, Fremington, Ilfracombe, Instow, South Molton, Lynton and Lynmouth. The district was formed on 1 April 1974 as a merger of the Barnstaple municipal borough, the Ilfracombe and Lynton urban districts, and the Barnstaple and South Molton rural districts.
Tiverton is a town and civil parish in Devon, England, and the commercial and administrative centre of the Mid Devon district. The population in 2019 was 20,587.
Instow is a village in north Devon, England. It is on the estuary where the rivers Taw and Torridge meet, between the villages of Westleigh and Yelland and on the opposite bank to Appledore. There is an electoral ward with the same name. The ward's total population at the 2011 census was 1,501.
Buckland Brewer is a village and civil parish in the Torridge district of Devon, England, 4.7 miles south of Bideford. Historically the parish formed part of Shebbear Hundred. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 777, increasing to 794 at the 2011 census The village is part of Waldon electoral ward. The population for this at the same census was 1,679.
Parkham is a small village, civil parish and former manor situated 5 miles south-west of the town of Bideford in north Devon, England. The parish, which lies within the Kenwith ward in the Torridge district, is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Alwington, Littleham, Buckland Brewer, East Putford and Woolfardisworthy. In 2001 its population was 742, compared to 786 in 1901.
Kirkgate Market is a market complex on Vicar Lane in the city centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest covered market in Europe and a Grade I listed building. There are currently 800 stalls which attract over 100,000 visitors a week.
Moreton House is a grade II listed country house and former large estate near Bideford, North Devon, England. The house is about one mile west of the old centre of Bideford town, its entrance drive leading off the south side of the road between Bideford and the village of Abbotsham. It has in recent years become increasingly surrounded by the suburbs of Bideford, and in 2014 only 5 acres of the former parkland remain attached to the house. The estate is said anciently to have been the property of the famous Grenville family, lords of the Manor of Bideford, and of Stowe, Kilkhampton in Cornwall. It was later acquired by the Buck merchant family of Bideford, which rebuilt the house in 1760 and again in 1821.
The Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway was a railway running in northwest Devon, England. It is unusual in that although it was built as a standard gauge 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in line, it was not joined to the rest of the British railway network, despite the London and South Western Railway having a station at Bideford East-the-Water, just on the other side of the river Torridge from the main town. The line was wholly situated on the peninsula made up of Westward Ho!, Northam and Appledore with extensive sand dunes by the Torridge and Taw estuary. The line opened in stages between 1901 and 1908, but closed in 1917, having been requisitioned by the War Office. Re-opening the line after World War I was considered, but dismissed as a viable option. The B.WH!&A.R. was the only railway company in the British Isles to have an exclamation mark in its company title.
Knowle is a village near Braunton located on the A361 road between Ilfracombe and Barnstaple in North Devon, England. It is in the civil parish of Braunton. Knowle is situated near to the Iron Age fortification of Knowle Hill Castle.
Norwich Market is an outdoor market consisting of around 200 stalls in central Norwich, England. Founded in the latter part of the 11th century to supply Norman merchants and settlers moving to the area following the Norman conquest of England, it replaced an earlier market a short distance away. It has been in operation on the present site for over 900 years.
A pannier market is a form of indoor market especially popular in Devon in the West Country of the United Kingdom where they can be found in various cities and towns. They take their name from the panniers once used to carry goods to market on the back of pack animals.
The Guildhall in Barnstaple in Devon in the United Kingdom is the Guildhall for the town and was completed in 1828, replacing an earlier Guildhall. Beneath and behind the Guildhall is the Pannier Market; completed in 1855, the building has been a Grade II* listed building since 19 January 1951.
The Pannier Market in Great Torrington in Devon is a Victorian pannier market of 12 small indoor shops - six either side of a narrow cobbled lane built in 1842 and restored in 1999. The Market House building at the front of the complex has been a Grade II* listed building on the Historic England Register since 1951.
South Molton Pannier Market is the pannier market for the town of South Molton in Devon, England located behind the town's Grade I listed Guildhall which was constructed between 1739 and 1741.
Bideford Town Hall is a municipal building at the corner of Bridge Street and New Road in Bideford, Devon, England. The building, which is the meeting place of Bideford Town Council, is a Grade II listed building.
St. John's Market was a municipal retail market hall in Liverpool, England, housed in a purpose-designed building erected between 1820 and 1822 to a design by John Foster, Junior. It quickly came to be seen as a model for market halls erected elsewhere in the UK in the 19th century. The north and south facades of the building were altered in 1881 and 1891; it was demolished in 1964, making way for the 1969 St Johns Shopping Centre, the western half of which occupies the hall's site.
