Monument record 1679/1 - Higham Ferrers Market

The site of some of the shops in the market place lies beneath the centre of the main road. Others lay in the area of Behind the Stye and yet others in the area of the car park. The quality of survival of any archaeology related to these shops is not known. Some may have had cellars in the medieval period, as some properties did in Brackley and Northampton, and so there is the potential for significant deep archaeological deposits within the market place. These may in some cases be filled with 19th century deposits as most of the properties were not demolished until the early 19th century. Thus care needs to be taken in assessing the significance of late deposits as they may prove to be filling medieval or post medieval cellars which remained in use.

{1} Higham is one of only three markets recorded in the county in 1086, in addition to the Borough of Northampton. The rights to the market were confirmed at various times during the medieval and post medieval period. The new charter of 1556 had granted two markets, on Saturday and Monday, but the Monday market appears to have had fallen into disuse before 1649. Then in 1664 the market was transferred to a Thursday and the Saturday market appropriated to the sale of cattle and horses. According to Morton the loss of the corn market to Wellingborough in the 17th century, which Higham unsuccessfully tried to win back, was critical to the decline of the town. In circa 1720 of the three markets which had at one time existed the Monday and Thursday markets were disused and the Saturday market was said to be 'much decayed'. By1849 all the markets had fallen into disuse.

The market place lay at the centre of the town and is traversed by the main road. It was, contrary to Beresford's interpretation, a roughly rectangular area which presumably had originally extended from the boundary of the churchyard to the tenements on the west side of Behind the Stye. It had however suffered significant encroachment on the eastern side, if this interpretation is correct, with rows of tenements fronting the east side of the market place between it and the churchyard. Elsewhere permanent shops and stalls had appears in several locations. Encroachment seems to have remained a problem for in 1451 fines were imposed for the erection of wooden hovels 'byhyndethestye'.

{4}Brief synopsis of Market history:

Domesday market
1250 fair S.Botolph
1300 Fair S.Michael
1556 Monday & Saturday market
fairs S.Matthias, S.Botolph, S. Michael, S. Katherine
1664 Thursday
fair Thurs before SS Philip & James; Thurs before S. James
1684 fair Thursday before Conversion of S. Paul

<1> Foard G.; Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Higham Ferrers (Medieval - Industrial), (unchecked) (Digital archive). SNN100543.

<2> 1591, Bibliotheque Nationale Paris, Mss 706 Anglais, Acq. Nouv. No.58, (unchecked) (Map). SNN100545.

<3> COLBECK J., 1737, Higham Ferrers, 1737 (NRO Map 1004), (unchecked) (Map). SNN100548.

<4> Taylor J.; Foard G.; Ballinger J., 2002, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Overview, Appendix 2 (unchecked) (Report). SNN103118.

<5> Beresford M., 1957, A Journey to Elizabethan Market Places, (unchecked) (Chapter). SNN55928.

Record last edited

Nov 13 2008 4:21PM