KEY SOURCES

WEBSITES Film, photos and memories, gathered after Hereford’s livestock market moved out of the city, are celebrated at chewingthecud. net. There is also a DVD available.

There’s film and old photos of Belfast City’s St George Market to be found at belfastcity.gov.uk/tourism-venues.

“Hereford really was a market town”: audio recordings from the farming community form part of a digital teacher’s pack which is archived at herefordshirelore.org.uk. BOOKS Rural Rides by William Cobbett (Penguin, 2001). The William Cobbett Society is at williamcobbett.org.uk.

An oral history, A Slap of the Hand – The History of Hereford Market, is currently out of print but some second-hand copies are still available online. VISIT The Museum of English Rural Life in Redlands Road, Reading ( reading.ac.uk/ merl) houses a unique archive relating to rural crafts and communities.

County archive offices and town or city museums such as Gloucester Folk Museum ( www.gloucester.gov.uk/citymuseum) are often a good source of market-related material while there is a detailed history of Gloucester’s markets and fairs at britishhistory.ac.uk.

The Travelling community has a close association with markets and horse fairs especially. The Romany & Traveller Family History Society hosts a useful website ( rtfhs.org.uk) while the University of Sheffield runs the National Fairground archive ( nfa.dept.shef.ac.uk)

Many market halls survived the mid-20th century mania for redevelopment including some strikingly attractive ones at Ross-on-Wye, Abergavenny, Chipping Camden and Downham in Norfolk.

The half-timbered market hall that once stood at Titchfield in Hampshire is preserved at the Weald and Downland Museum in West Sussex.