Chester Market

Chester was for many centuries the most important place by far in north-western England. That was largely due to its location at the crossroads of the British Isles, where routes from southern Britain led into north Wales and the Irish Sea. Chester survived as a regional capital through the Middle Ages and into the 18th century, with no rival nearer than Shrewsbury, but it dominated a much smaller region than cities such as Bristol, Exeter, Norwich, and Newcastle upon Tyne, as well as being a smaller place in absolute terms. Its hinterland was poorer than most of theirs, and its overseas trade was much more limited. The hinterland in economic terms covered the western half of Cheshire and much of north-east Wales; it was the main market for the agricultural produce of that area, to which it also supplied manufactured goods, both locally produced and imported. The sale of agricultural produce, locally manufactured goods, and imports of all kinds in Chester's markets and fairs contributed greatly to the city's prosperity from an early period into modern times. Despite the huge changes in the nature of the national economy and in the means by which goods were distributed, retailing remained of prime importance to the city at the end of the 20th century. A very large proportion of late 20th-century visitors to Chester came 'for the shops', and the city had a retail sector far larger than its own population would have warranted.

Early Fairs and Markets
One pillar of Chester's economy remained its dominance over an extensive, if relatively impoverished hinterland. Its twice-weekly market was without serious rival between north-east Wales and the Marches to the west, Derby to the east, Shrewsbury to the south, and Lancaster and perhaps beyond to the north. Marketing was concentrated in the two open spaces by St Peter's church and the abbey gate, but also spread into the main streets.

By the 13th century Chester's Midsummer fair lasted a month and the Michaelmas fair a fortnight. The significance of the Midsummer fair is attested by the citizens' largely successful struggle in the late 13th century to wrest control from the abbot of St. Werburgh's. Commodities included salt, coal, horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, sacks of wool, pelts, and copper or bronze pots and bowls. Cloth was also important.

The growing commercial importance of the fairs is suggested by arrangements made c. 1260, whereby Wymark, widow of John the tailor, divided her property with Hugh the tailor, presumably her son, and agreed to take down the wall which separated her holding from his during fair time, thus giving Hugh extra space which he presumably required at a busy time. The impact of the fairs upon the region as a whole is indicated by the fact that policing fell in part upon landholders living as far away as Crewe (in Coppenhall), and by the existence within the county of rural serjeants of passage who protected routeways to Chester during fair time.

There was perhaps a sequence of local small-scale summer fairs in the environs of Chester, linked with the main one in the city. Thus the dates of Bromborough fair, established in 1278, were timed to dovetail exactly with the opening of Chester's Midsummer fair.

Tolls and Customs
Tolls were taken at the city's gates by the late 13th century and probably long before. In the reign of Edward II (1307-27), when they were recorded in detail, they were levied on the goods of 'foreign' merchants as they entered and left the city, the citizens themselves being exempt. At the Eastgate, the principal entry for landborne traffic and the only gate at which tolls could be paid in cash, there was a tariff for wool, salt, coal, timber, 'long boards', bark for tanning, turf, knives, cups, dishes, and tankards. Merchandise produced within Cheshire, including corn, malt, lead, iron, steel, and livestock, was exempt. At the Northgate the serjeant took toll on a wide variety of sea fish and shellfish, ale, fruit, sheep, timber, shingles, coal, firewood, and turf. At the Bridgegate tolls were taken on cattle brought in from Wales, fish and shellfish of various kinds, hops, nuts, firewood, turf, coal, timber, shingles, laths, bark for tanning, knives, cups, and dishes. Levies were presumably also made at the two adjacent gates, the Shipgate and the Horsegate, for which the serjeant of the Bridgegate was also responsible. The commodities which passed through the Watergate were similar, and included barley, various kinds of fish, coal, cups, dishes, and knives.

In the late 13th century the tolls levied at the gates were disputed. In 1290, for example, the citizens challenged the serjeant Hugh of Raby's rights at the Bridgegate, and in 1293 the serjeant of the Eastgate, Robert of Bradford, was charged with taking unauthorized customs. Others charged with taking illegal tolls included the abbot of Chester, who was extracting levies (vadia) from traffic on the road from Portpool to the Northgate, and one of the serjeants of the city, who had taken prises from dealers and fishermen bringing fish into Chester by water. The problem remained unresolved in the early 14th century, and in 1314 the keepers of all four gates were found guilty of abusing their position, in particular of taking unauthorized custom on commodities produced in the shire and from fishing boats coming to the anchorage at Portpool and to the harbour proper. Even so, in 1349 the serjeant of the Eastgate was still maintaining his right to tolls on many items declared exempt in 1314.

All that is known of the port customs between the mid 11th and late 13th century is that 'due prises' existed. By the 1270s, however, it is clear that wine was among the items on which prisage was taken. In the 1280s or early 1290s a collector was appointed, an eminent Chester merchant, and in the early 14th century the money so raised was treated as revenue of the earldom. Prisage, which was also levied on timber, bark, and coal as well as wine, was distinguished from custom, in theory levied upon alien merchants, but apparently not collected until the 1380s, presumably because alien merchants did not import wine through Chester in the earlier 14th century.

In other respects Chester's relationship to the national customs system is obscure. Although not included in the custom on wool, wool fells, and hides, inaugurated in 1275, (fn. 105) it was mentioned in the new custom of 1303, when two former mayors were appointed collectors in the city and the Welsh ports as far south as Haverfordwest (Pemb.). (fn. 106) Despite a trickle of royal instructions thereafter, custom on wool, wool fells, and hides was levied only in that year, when local merchants paid duty amounting to just over £19 to the chamberlain of Chester. Thereafter no further payment was recorded and from 1320 the chamberlain noted that custom was not taken at Chester because the cocket seal had not been issued to the port. In 1343 the city was expressly excluded from the national customs system and closed to the export of wool. It was again excluded from collection when the custom on cloth was extended to native merchants in 1347.

Tolls were also levied by the citizens themselves. Indeed, in the later 1270s a 'custom of boats' and minor tolls were included with the revenues of the city. Such customs had probably been regulated from the mid 13th century by the guild merchant, which certainly by 1319 exacted payment from alien merchants for the sale of merchandise including herring, salmon, and eels.

Further taxes levied on merchandise by the citizens included murage and pavage for repairing the walls and paving the streets. Murage was the subject of a royal grant to the citizens from the mid 13th century, but usually there is no indication of how the money was raised. In 1279, however, the mayor and citizens were granted a three-year pavage of ½d. on every cartload of firewood or coals brought into the city. Later, the leavelookers, as the wardens of the guild merchant became known, made a fixed levy on all merchandise sold by aliens within the city whenever a murage was granted.

The First Market Hall


In 1836 the "Chester Guide" reported:


 * "The state of the markets was until very lately highly discreditable to the City of Chester. The meat market consisited of a collection of covered wooden stalls crowded together on the north of the Exchange and universally kept in a very filthy condition; and a similar nuisance on the south side of the Exchange served for a fish market, whilst vegetables, fruits and flowers were scattered in complete confusion throughout the piazza and along the front of the building. The dealers in poultry and butter displayed their commodities in Eastgate Street, occasionally shifting from the street to the rows according to the state of the weather, very much to the invonvenience of the inhabitants and passengers. But the frequent complaints of citizens have induced the corporation to accomodate the city with markets befitting this wealthy and antient town- the erection of the new markets was commenced in 1826... the fish and vegetable market is in the south side, that for butter on the east and the meat and poultry on the north. It is also intended to erect a market for potatoes nearer to the Northgate. The new markets are built of brick and roofed in and lighted from the top, and open on all sides. When finished, they will no doubt prove an ornament to the city."

In 1863, a new Market Hall was built, and the "Town Hall side" of the market square used to be dominated by the baroque-revival frontage of Chester's "traditional" Market Hall. From the 1860s, ever-larger sums were borrowed for capital works. The biggest items were £11,000 in 1863 for the Market Hall, £35,000 in 1867 and 1870 for a new Town Hall after the Exchange was destroyed by fire (the balance of the cost coming from insurance), and £50,000 over the period 1873-9 for sewerage works. Even the smaller amounts spent on buying up property for extending the markets were large by earlier standards, so that by the time of the 1884 Improvement Act the council had raised a little over £120,000 in loans. Of £101,000 outstanding in 1878-9, the main source was public works loans, accounting for 46 per cent; private individuals had advanced 30 per cent, the governors of the Chester infirmary 11 per cent, and the trustees of the Owen Jones charity 10 per cent.

The Forum
The 1967 Forum, designed by Michael Lyall Associates, comprised shops on the ground floor and council offices above.

Sources and Links

 * The Black & White Picture Place has extensive information on the history of the Market Hall;