Market Day

The Market Place in Durham has been the focal point for traders to sell their wares alongside farmers, butchers, greengrocers, shoemakers, street peddlers and entertainers since Saxon and Norman times.  The area on which the Market Hall stands was part of the site of the former palace and gardens built in the Middle Ages for the Nevilles of Raby and Brancepeth, the Earls of Westmoreland, who had forfeited the property to the Crown after their involvement in the ill-fated Rebellion of the North in 1569.  The Market Hall is described by Nikolaus Pevsner as "interior mostly with the usual cast-iron roof in a series of pitches on cast-iron columns, but stone vaulted at the north end. The back elevation, exposed to Leazes Road, has no Gothic pretences, just a massive retaining wall and plain segmental-headed windows under a row of gables". (Says Pevsner).


In May 1851, The Durham Markets Company Act was passed for establishing new Markets and Market Places in the City of Durham, for abolishing the Corn Tolls and for regulating the Markets and Fairs within the said City and Suburbs thereof and for other Purposes.  In the late nineteenth Century, fairs for horses, sheep and horned cattle were regularly held in the Market Hall and twice a year servants' hirings were held. Originally the Market was only open on a Saturday, when trading finished at 11pm with the ringing of the Market Bell.
(Abridged from Durham History)


Above:  Leaving the Market Hall and looking into the Market Place.