However, there was never a specific marketplace or square.   The markets were probably 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 in a set order.  Poultry, butter and eggs were to go on the south side between the Tun and the White Hart.  Oatmeal and bread were by the Crown on the north side. Boots, shoes, and gloves were arranged from the Fish Cross eastwards on the south side.  Buckets, bowls, crocks, and dishes went from the White Hart eastward on the south side and tanned leather was set out 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 to North Street in 1865.  Sheep were penned and other animals were 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.  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.  It was housed in the front of the Guildhall in Elizabethan times.  In 1626 it moved to a building that was 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 of corn, from each sack.  Tolls were officially paid to the Mayor personally, not directly to the corporation, until 1835.

At around this time 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 around 1970.

In 1579, Thomas Baker built a market house for rye and oats in front of Holy Trinity.  It was eventually pulled down in 1757, being replaced by an octagonal building, which was, itself, taken down in the early 19th century.

In 1593 the old medieval Fish Cross, by the Angel, in the High Street 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.  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 started 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.

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 of perhaps a 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 in the High Street until the end of the last century.  One, granted by Edward III in 1341, became the principal stock fair.  It was held on 4th and 5th May. Until 1752 4 May was St George’s Day.

Stock animals and horses were sold.   Sheep were penned on the Mount in the Fair Field, since dug away to accommodate locomotive sheds for the Station.  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.

The smaller, Winter Fair was held on 22 and 23 November.  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, moved to Stoke Park.  It is held at the end of May and in a sense it can be considered as the modern successor of the old fairs.