Market Days in Rural England Produce Scenes Whose Roots Date Back More Than 900 Years

A crowd gathered here in the market square on a Tuesday and gazed up at a man in a striped apron, holding up a smoked ham.

“I won’t even charge you 13.50 for this absolute smacker,” he cried. “I won’t even charge you 10. I won’t even charge you nine quid. Who’s got 7 pounds 80? There’s a lady rushing in there.”

He dropped the ham into the shopper’s bag. “Next she’ll want me to cook it!” he says to onlookers’ delight.

Scenes like this in Salisbury’s marketplace give tourists a taste of daily life and put new meaning into the old rhyme about taking piggy to market.

Although livestock are no longer driven through the streets, markets still are held throughout England, thanks to a tradition of organized trading begun by 1st-Century Roman settlers.

Later, Anglo-Saxons protected shoppers from thievery by holding markets in abbeys, castles and churches, and William the Conqueror granted royal charters for markets at least five miles apart.

Many places continue to hold provision, livestock and flea markets, and the local women’s institute markets that put a little extra money into householders’ pockets.

In such places, the panorama of rural England is as vivid as any museum canvas: middle-aged women with market baskets, old men in flat caps with canes, stout elderly women leading tiny dogs, young mothers with toddlers in tow and farm folk slicked up for a day in town. Often, a brewery truck pulled by draught horses rattles down a cobbled street.

The city of Bath’s Saturday market was chartered by Edward III in 1372, although trading probably took place there when it was a Roman spa. At the daily provision market in the city’s 19th-Century Guildhall, you’ll find Cheddar and other cheeses and lemon-flavored Bath buns.

Queen Elizabeth I’s 1599 charter establishing Saturday market at Andover, in Hampshire, also sanctioned a “pie powder” court (from the Old French for dusty feet, pied poedreux ), where vagabonds were tried for infringing local traders’ rights.

On Friday mornings, the Andover Women’s Institute holds a market at the town hall. Inside, members (mostly housewives and retirees) sell their homemade fudge, beeswax furniture polish and scones, while others outside peddle fragrant herbs and plants.

Trading at the municipal markets is watched as carefully as in ancient times, when bakers could be flogged for cheating customers or fishmongers put in the stocks with their bad goods burned beneath their noses.

Even sellers are protected. At Barnstaple, in a remote corner of Devon, local folk are given preference for stall space at the Tuesday and Friday pannier (provision) market.

Market jargon adds charm to England’s enduring regional accents. The toby is the market official who allocates space, collects rents and regulates the types of goods sold. Lurkers and standers are stall-holders, while casuals are sellers without leases who arrive early, hoping for an unclaimed space.

Recently at Salisbury’s open market of about 100 stalls I browsed past cockles and whelks served on a plate, blue jeans from Korea, Sheffield silver plate, vegetables pointedly labeled English, and oranges from Spain and Cyprus.

I overheard a fishmonger say: “I’ve got a beautiful brill for you, my girl!” and turned to see him display the flat fish for his appreciative customer.

In a wagon marked “Finest English Pork, Beef & Lamb,” Richard Hounslow, a third-generation butcher wearing a boater, showed me his selection of fresh English offal (animal entrails such as sweetbreads and tripe), from which we get the word, awful.

Market auctions entertain even as they disperse vendors’ wares. At Sturminster Newton in Dorset, weekly auctioneer Richard Burden stands on a step-stool in a drizzling rain, surrounded by household goods.

“A boiler and a fan,” he croaked. “Like a 22-year-old man marryin’ a 72-year-old woman!” The crowd huddled under black umbrellas laughs and he repeats: “A boiler and a fan!” and begins calling out prices. “Don’t look at him, or you’ve bought it!” cautions the woman beside me.

Centuries of trading have produced diversity in buildings as well as goods and people. Barnstaple’s glass-roofed Victorian market hall shelters shoppers from frequent rains; other towns have tentlike stalls set up in a central square that reverts to a parking lot when the market closes.

The market cross, first a crossroad and later a place where crimes were punished and marriages announced, evolved into an open-sided enclosure for selling perishable goods. Of four built in Salisbury, the Gothic Poultry Cross remains, still lively on market days.

During the reign of Stuart monarchs, raised guildhalls were built in ancient towns such as Ross-on-Wye and Ledbury in Herefordshire. Vendors still sell their wares in Ross on Thursday and Saturday in the open market beneath the red sandstone hall built in 1660.

Ten miles away, the half-timbered Market House on Ledbury’s High Street adjoins Church Lane, an ancient market boundary whose buildings nearly touch across a narrow cobbled alley. In a corner studio, farmer-turned-craftsman Simon Cameron toils to fill the demand for traditional English willow market baskets.

Corn exchanges, built to shelter grain sellers and their goods, are found in market towns such as Newbury and Marlborough. Many of these neoclassical stone structures stand empty, but the one in Devizes, topped by a statue of Ceres overlooking the market square, is now an exhibit hall.

People and architecture aside, market day’s greatest appeal is its pedestrian pace: Cars are left at home or in parking garages, and people on foot fill narrow, winding streets and wide marketplaces. The smell of baked goods and meat pies drifts temptingly from shop doors.

As when medieval markets and fairs were held on feast days, today’s markets offer a break from routine, an excuse to meet friends and a chance to eat out.

By 10 a.m. Reeve the Baker, a tearoom on Salisbury’s market square, does a brisk business in cheese scones and Wiltshire ham sandwiches accompanied by pots of tea.

Shoppers in far-off Barnstaple retire to lunch in restaurants such as Settles on Market Street, where local specialties include smoked mackerel, pork and liver pate, and lip-smacking treacle tart with Devonshire clotted cream.

Area market schedules:

Andover: Thursday and Saturday, Women’s Institute (W.I.) Market; Friday, 8:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.

Barnstaple: Covered pannier market, Tuesday and Friday.

Bath: Daily covered market in 12-sided domed building with floral decorations. Note the “Nail,” a pedestal where bargains were once struck. Northgate and Bridge Streets.

Devizes: Brewery town whose marketplace was used to film Thomas Hardy’s “Far From the Madding Crowd.” Thursday, W.I. Market, 8 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

Gloucester: Ancient cathedral city whose market was established by 14th-Century royal charter. Livestock market Monday and Thursday, covered 19th-Century market hall, (daily except Sunday; W.I. Market, Monday through Saturday).

Ledbury: “Black and white” town of half-timbered buildings, former site of a chartered Tuesday market, now has a privately run general market. Thursday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Also a bric-a-brac market, second and fourth Tuesdays; cattle market, Wednesday; W.I. Market, Friday.

Marlborough: Site of one of the widest streets in England where market is held (Wednesday and Saturday). Also W.I. Market, Saturday, 7:30 a.m.-11 a.m.

Newbury: Stall market Thursday.

Ross-on-Wye: Hilltop town on the River Wye. A 17th-Century market hall, Thursday and Saturday at center of town; cattle market at the foot of Edde Cross Street, Friday; W.I. Market, Saturday.

Salisbury: Old cathedral town near Stonehenge with large open market, 7 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Tuesday and Saturday.

Sturminster-Newtown: Pretty Dorset hill town whose assortment of Monday markets include Britain’s largest calf auction.

Recommended accommodations:

Devizes: The Black Swan Hotel, Market Place, Devizes, Wiltshire. SN10 1JQ. An 18th-Century coaching inn. Doubles with bath and full breakfast, 37, including VAT.

Ledbury: The Feathers Hotel, High Street, Ledbury, Herefordshire HR8 1DS. Luxury accommodations and meals in half-timbered Elizabethan coaching inn. Doubles, 60 to 79, with private bath and TV. Prix fixe dinner, 13.50 inclusive.

Seven Stars Inn, The Homend, Ledbury, Herefordshire HR8 1BW. A 16th-Century tavern with garden and modest accommodations. Doubles with breakfast, 15.

Ross-on-Wye--Edde Cross House, Edde Cross Street, Ross, Herefordshire HR9 7BZ. Elegant period townhouse with six guest rooms overlooking the River Wye. Doubles with breakfast, 28.

The King’s Head Hotel, 8 High St., Ross, Herefordshire HR9 5HL. Doubles with bath and breakfast, 48, including value-added tax.

Salisbury: The Red Lion Inn, 4 Milford St., Salisbury, Wiltshire SP1 2AM. Antique-filled old coaching inn off a courtyard near city center. Doubles with breakfast, 70.

For more information about travel to England, contact the British Tourist Authority, 350 S. Figueroa St., Suite 450, Los Angeles 90071, (213) 628-3525.