Monument record 727/32/1 - Towcester market

The foundation date of Towcester market is unknown, but believed to be ancient. The first reference dates to c1220.

{1} Towcester’s location, at the crossing of several important roads, offered strong commercial possibilities. Watling Street, which ran from south-eastern England to the north-west of the country, crossed the road linking Northampton and Oxford (via Brackley), while a road that crossed the Thames at Windsor and headed north through Aylesbury and Buckingham ended at Towcester. Towcester offered trading facilities between Northampton and Brackley, a distance of 20 miles.

In the medieval period Towcester had no rival markets within the distance considered prejudicial. Northampton lay some nine miles to the north east, Brackley about ten miles to the south west, Stony Stratford seven miles to the south east, and Buckingham eleven miles to the south. Moreover, the market days of these towns did not clash with Towcester’s Tuesday market. Northampton’s market days were Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays; Brackley’s market was held on Wednesdays; Buckingham had a ?Saturday market and Stony Stratford.

Towcester was a royal and hundredal manor and might have been expected to have had a market at an early date, as did King’s Sutton where the market was recorded in Domesday Book. The first reference to a market at Towcester, however, dates from c.1220, when there was mention of the market place. In 1275 the market at Towcester was one of seven markets to which the burgesses of Northampton objected, since all of them lay within ten leagues of the county town and thereby infringed the burgesses’ claim to exclusivity within this radius. (It would appear that a league was a mile). At the Inquiry it was said that the date of the establishment of the market at Towcester and the authority for its foundation were unknown. This would suggest that the market was indeed an ancient prescriptive one, in existence before formal market grants were required.

In 1318 Aymer de Valence was granted an annual fair at his manor of Towcester, to be held on the vigil, feast and morrow of the Annunciation (25 March). No mention was made of a market. In 1330 a Tuesday market and an annual fair (10 August) were claimed by William de Clynton on behalf of Laurence de Hastings. This change meant that the fair coincided with the feast day of the parish church, and this may have been the reason for the altered date. Alternatively, a fair in early August might have suited the local agrarian economy better than a fair in late March, even though harvesting might still have been in progress. In 1392 the market and the St Laurence fair were worth £5 6s 8d a year; by 1467-8 their value had fallen to 40 shillings.

In 1544 Henry VIII granted the bailiffs, men and inhabitants of Towcester vill two fairs each lasting one day, one on the feast of St Philip and St James (1 May), and one on the feast of St Luke (18 October). In 1684 Charles II granted Sir William Fermor and his heirs a weekly Tuesday market and three yearly fairs: one on the 23 September instead of a certain fair lately held on the feast of St Laurence, one on Shrove Tuesday, and one on 22 March. In Baker’s day there were fairs on Shrove Tuesday, 12 May and 29 October; the March and September fairs were evidently no longer held. All three were held on Market Hill.

The only known references to Towcester’s market place occur in documents relating to the grant of a messuage next to the market (forum) to Luffield Priory in c.1220. On the other side of the messuage was a house. The market area as recorded on the earliest maps of the 19th century consisted only of a widened part of the main street in the central part of the town. In 1737 the Butchers’ Shambles were sited here, near the lane leading to the church yard gate. It has been suggested that a more significant market area existed at Towcester in the early medieval period, occupying the space between the castle and Watling Street. It would seem unlikely that this area would have been built over whilst the castle still served a defensive function, and a location at a castle gate was a typical market location. Had a market occupied this area in the early medieval period, this would help to explain why the church is set so far back behind tenements, why the main gate of the manor should open onto a minor lane, and why the pre-turnpike road from Brackley to Northampton should take such a tortuous route through the town. No evidence for the infilling of this suggested early market place has been found. Had encroachment begun at an early date, this could perhaps help to explain the absence of references, although a more likely explanation could be the absence of relevant documentation.

There is very little evidence for shops and stalls in the medieval period. In c.1220-1 one penny rent from a shop in Towcester was granted to Luffield Priory; in 1322 a widow quitclaimed one third of a shop (choppa) to Richard son of Richard Chalouner. The 1392 survey made no specific reference to shops or stalls, which were perhaps included among the various tenements at farm. Thirteen shops were listed among the decays of rents in 1467-8. Three shops were in the lord’s hand and presumably untenanted. One had been occupied by William Wexschaundeler at an annual rent of 14 shillings. Rents of 5 shillings and 3s 4d had formerly been paid for the other empty shops. The former tenants were perhaps related to townspeople recorded as holding property near the junction of Park Lane and Watling Street earlier in the 15th century. This raises the possibility that the two shops were in this location. In 1467-8 the rent of a fourth shop had been reduced from 6s 8d to two shillings; the remaining nine shops were all rented out at reduced rates.

The manorial rental of 1609 listed nine shops, for which the rents ranged from 6s 8d down to just two pence. Only one reference to a shop has been found in the inventories which have been searched, the shop of the mercer Joseph Clarke. In 1681 it contained goods worth over £36, including linen cloth, figs, raisins, tobacco and coloured stockings, plus some scales and weights. White stockings worth £11 10s were stored in the garret. More evidence for shops certainly exists. In 1686, for example, that of an apothecary contained drugs, syrups, chemical oils and syrup pots. In the years 1750-1842 Towcester’s retail traders occupied an important position in terms of influence and significance, and many of them were moderately well-off.

Among the commodities sold at Towcester’s market was corn. In April 1275 the prior of Luffield agreed to pay for corn in accordance with the price current at Towcester on the three market days preceding 24 June. In 1329-30 the bailiff, who held the manor at farm, was fined for unjustly levying toll from people who had purchased corn for sustentation or seed. This was contrary to the custom of the market, which only permitted toll to be taken on corn bought for sale or merchandise. Some accounts of the Clerk of the Market dating from the early 15th century list the fines imposed on individual traders. These records accordingly indicate something of the nature of the trade carried out in the town, although perhaps not exclusively in the market.

The market remained important and Towcester served as a regional centre for sales of cattle and corn. In 1712 John Morton wrote that the town owed its improvements to a well-frequented market, and to the great West-Chester road on which it stood.

(Ref 3.5.2)Sales of hides at Towcester’s market are attested in the early 15th century. In 1401-2 the records of the Clerk of the Market named the tanner John Yrlond who had been amerced one shilling for badly tanned hides. The shoemaker John Kendale was amerced six pence for overcharging. No other craft workers were named, and this perhaps indicates the significance of leather workers in Towcester at this time.

The importance of sales of raw hides in the market in the 1540s is indicated by the two leather testers and the use of a town seal to testify to the quality of the hides



{2} 1318 fair Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and 1330 recorded fair of St Lawrence.
Brief synopsis of Market

1220-1 market place mentioned
Existed in 1274-5.
1318 fair Annunciation of Blessed Virgin Mary
1330 Tuesday market
1550 fair
1684 Tuesday cattlemarket
fairs Sept 23rd; Shrove Tuesday; March 22nd

<1> Taylor J.; Foard G.; Laughton J.; Steadman S.; Ballinger J., 2002, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Towcester, 3.4 (Report). SNN103132.

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

Record last edited

Mar 30 2022 9:54AM