It is almost certain that Guildford has been a market town for at least a thousand years: it is highly unlikely that a town with its own mint in Saxon times would have lacked a market. Guildford’s market is therefore ‘prescriptive’ - in other words not granted by charter: it had existed before any charters were given. The first written reference to a market is in 1276 and the charter of 1488 grants the privileges of the Clerk of the Market to the Mayor. Later the Borough’s records are full of references to the markets, a major source of income for the corporation. However, there was never a marketplace or square: Guildford’s ancient town plan was established when special marketplaces were not provided. The markets could have been held on wasteland between St Mary’s and the river crossing until moving to the High Street.
In 1592 a Guild Merchant ordered that the stalls of the Tuesday market should be arranged as follows: poultry, butter, and eggs, between the Tun and the White Hart on the south side; oatmeal and bread by the Crown on the north side; boots, shoes, and gloves, from the Fish Cross eastwards on the south side; buckets, bowls, crocks, and dishes from the White Hart eastward on the south side; tanned leather from South Lane (Quarry Street) eastward on the south side of the street. There was a small Market House for wheat, barley, peas and tares for animal fodder. Oxen, cows, sheep and pigs, were to be sold in the middle of the street between South Lane and the Market House. One penny on every bargain struck at the cattle market was paid to the bailiff of the corporation. Because of the inconvenience caused in the High Street, the cattle market was moved in 1865 to North Street, where sheep were penned and other cattle tethered to a chain running down the south side. In June 1896, it was transferred to a new Cattle Market in Woodbridge Road and finally to Slyfield Green in 1969 until it closed in May 2000. A pig market was held by Holy Trinity Church until 1846.
The corn market seems always to have been the most profitable to the corporation. This was housed in the front of the Guildhall in Elizabethan times, but this was replaced in 1626 by another building opposite, part of the Tun Inn. In 1818 both market and inn were demolished and a new, imposing corn market in the style of a Tuscan temple was erected. The corn porters who carried the sacks took their toll in kind – a ‘Winchester’ pint – from each sack. These tolls were officially paid to the mayor personally, not directly to the corporation, until 1835. Two years previously the mayor received between £170 and £200 per annum from this but passed only £150 on to the Borough. The corn market was moved to Woodbridge Road in 1901 and the old building put to various uses until being altered to form an entrance to the newly widened Tunsgate in the mid 1930s. The corn market petered out in about 1970
In 1579 Thomas Baker built a market house for rye and oats, in front of Holy Trinity, which was eventually pulled down in 1757, being replaced by an octagonal building which itself, was taken down in the early 19th century. In 1593 the old medieval Fish Cross in the High Street by the Angel was replaced with a wooden building called the Round House.
By the late 18th century the official provisions for the sale of fish, meat, butter, eggs and greenstuffs were not adequate, and in 1800 a private committee took a lease on the old cockpit in what came to be called Market Street. This ‘Green Market’ became borough property in 1935, but high rents forced stallholders to move it to the south side of North Street in 1887. Like the other markets it moved to Woodbridge Road in 1896. The present North Street market was begun after the First World War so that ex-servicemen could supplement their income by selling produce. In recent years a monthly Farmers’ Market has been held in the High Street.
It is interesting to consider the area served by the Guildford markets: Farnham, Godalming, Dorking, Haslemere and Woking all had markets, which competed for, trade. The routes operated by the carriers in Victorian times show that the influence of Guildford spread to the north of Woking and far south of Haslemere into mid Sussex. On the other hand few villages to the west were served from Guildford – these would have looked more to Farnham – while only a few miles east Dorking seems to have exerted its attraction. Guildford’s commercial hinterland can therefore be imagined as a fan-shaped arc perhaps of 10 miles radius to the north of the town and another of perhaps 20 miles radius to the south.
In addition to the markets there were two annual fairs, held likewise in the High Street until the end of the last century. One was granted by Edward III in 1341, which became the principal stock fair held on the 4th May (St Georges Day until 1752) and the following day. Stock animals and horses were sold, the sheep being penned on the Mount in the Fair Field (since dug away to accommodate the station’s locomotive sheds). Sheep farmers on the Surrey-Hampshire borders would buy horned Dorset ewes early in October at Appleshaw Fair – they would lamb early and the ewes would afterwards be sold at the May Fair at Guildford. Another, the winter fair, was held on the 22nd and 23rd of November, but this was a smaller fair. There was also a lamb market, held on the Tuesday before Easter and every following Tuesday until the May Fair. These increasingly became entertainments rather than opportunities for commercial transactions and the two major fairs survived as fun fairs in Woodbridge Road until the 1920s. In 1960 the county agricultural show, which had previously been held at various places in Surrey, began to be held annually in Stoke Park at the end of May. In a sense this can be considered as the modern successor of the old fairs.
Guildford Museum, Castle Arch, Guildford, Surrey
(01483) 444750
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