Chapter 18

Markets and Fairs

 “Concerning a market.

• Our Lord the King has granted to William de Fortibus Earl of Albemarle that he should have a market at his manor of Cockermu each week for Saturday until the coming of age of our Lord the King unless that market etc. [Le: be to the detriment of neighbouring markets] and the Sheriff of Cumberland is commanded to allow him to have that market. Witness as above.” (i.e: Hubert de Burgh our justiciar at Westminster 19th. day of May.) [1]

So runs an entry in the Close Roll (Chancery) of 5 Henry III (1221) and Cockermouth received a market charter – a system of licensing markets possibly dating from the time of Alfred in the late 9th century and inaugurated as a method of raising money for the king. It was probably a recognition of trading already existing and was one of the earliest Cumbrian charters, the first being Kendal in 1189. [2] Henry was at this time only about 14, hence the reference to ‘coming of age’.

About a year later a similar charter changed the day to Monday and on Monday it has remained until now, over 700 years, although early last century there was also some selling in the Market Place on Saturday mornings and evenings.[3] It has been suggested that the reason for the change was the difficulty in cleaning up the streets after a Saturday market in time for Sunday, but this is conjecture.

By the end of the 17th century the number of market towns in Cumberland had risen to 16, giving a system of markets approximately 15 miles apart, so that people did not need to travel more than about eight miles.

At one time the church service on a saint’s day, which would be a holiday, was followed by a fair and market with sports. etc., in the churchyard. The market aspect spread to Sundays and in about 1306 Cockermouth sent a petition to Parliament complaining of the injury to its market caused by the bartering which took place at Crosthwaite Church on Sundays and saints’ days.[5] Corn, flour, peas, beans, meat, fish, linen and other cloth, etc., changed hands after the service instead of being brought to Cockermouth market and the Cockermouth people were complaining that they were losing business and unable to pay their rent. It is not clear how this petition relates to a date given [6] for the granting of Keswick’s market charter, namely 1276, 30 years before the complaint. If the people of Keswick had to travel 13 miles to Cockermouth, further from east of the town, they too had cause for complaint. The system of church bartering was fairly widespread and there is a record that at Wigton the butchers hung their carcasses in the church porch and that when people began buying before the service and hanging their purchases over the backs of the seats the vicar stepped in to stop the practice!

In early days there was variation in weights and measures over the country. Even in one market confusion could arise. A reference to Cockermouth in the Holm Cultram papers shows a varying equality between gallons and bushels (Bz) according to the commodity being measured.

• “And in Cockermouth Market wth.in the said County of Cumberland there is and haith bene lyke uncertame and untrewe mesers for buying and selling come and graine, viz.- for benes, peses, wheat, rye and salt about 12 gallons and for bige [barley], oits and malte a Bz of 22 gallands or thereabouts… ‘[7)

A bushel finally settled down as a dry measure for grain, fruit, etc., equivalent to eight gallons. There were other variations, which were the concern of the market lookers appointed by the court leet. In 1684 a court record reads

• “We do amerce Thomas Harrison, of Crosscanonby, for his wife keeping unlawful weights and selling by them 3s-4d.” [8]

and in 1688 was recorded

• “We amerce John Peile, fellmonger, for keeping false weights 3s-4d. Robert Lancton, Bailiff.”

Justice was such that John Peile, a fellmonger (wool-buyer), churchwarden and burgess, obviously an important man in the town, was fined the same amount as an outsider coming in to use the town market.

Some standards were more difficult to enforce and regulations had to be made such as this one from the court in 1714

• “We do put in pain that no person or persons shall sell any linen yam within the Borough of Cockermouth but what shall be three quarters and a half reel, and six score threads to each cut and twelve cuts to each hank upon pain of6s-8d. for each default.”

One regulation of 1679 was designed to make conditions of buying and selling fair for all, enabling those who lived in the surrounding villages to reach market in time to have an equal chance with the townspeople and not when the best goods had already been sold.

• “It is put in pain that no butter shall be sold or carried out of ye markett before ye hour of 11 o’clock and at that time ye skavander shall give notice by the bell belonging to his Grace, and in default sub-poena 6s-8d.”

The skavander or scavenger was in charge of some aspects of the market on behalf of the lord of the manor and under the direction of the bailiff, and one of his duties was to give a signal for the opening of the market by ringing the bell, known as the market, badger or butter bell, or at one time as his Grace’s bell (after Charles Seymour, the ‘Proud Duke of Somerset’). The bell hangs in a niche on No. 9 on the south side of the Market Place, on the wall of the former Greyhound Inn. Stolen in June 1977 when scaffolding was erected against this property, it has been recovered and re-hung. It was last used in February 1910. [9]

Not only could the public be fined for not obeying the bell, but the bell-ringer himself could be penalised for not doing his job efficiently.

• “It is put in pain that the scavenger shall from this day forward every market day ring the market bell exactly at 12 o’clock sub-poena 6s-8d.”

 ruled the court of 1685.

There were regulations also to ensure that all business was done in the market area, with no buying and selling elsewhere in the town or on its approaches in order to avoid paying market tolls. Thus the court leet ruling of 1685

• “It is put in pain that nobody shall buy any butter in any house or shop to sell again or transport unless in open markett, sub poena 6s-8d.”

This is an early mention of shops. In 1715 the court stated

• “Whereas great abuses have been done by the Butchers of this place buying sheep and calves, etc. , out of the usual markett place, we put in pain for every default 6s. 8d., viz. they are to buy between ye East end of Cocker Bridge and the Hall Gates” (probably near the market bell).

Butchers were the subject of many rules and regulations.

Tolls payable early in the 19th century included:

• “One penny per head for all eattle sold in the Market between Michaelmas and May Day. Four pence per head for all Horses sold on Gallowbarrow on Michaelmas Fair. Two pense per head for all Horses exchanged at the Fair on the same day in the Market for Sale. If a person has more than one sack of potatoes no more than one half penny is paid. One halfpenny for every Stall or Stand erected or placed in the Market. Persons having Settlements in the Township of Cockermouth pay no Stallage for any thing they set down in the Market for sale ….. But if the Person is merely resident in the Town without a Settlement he pays the Stallage for whatever he sets down in the Market for sale whether the article is grown within the Township or not at the Rates above mentioned.” [10]

There was sometimes difficulty in collecting tolls from traders coming in from neighbouring villages

• “Memo. that on the 29 Jan. 1759 Jeremyah Stephenson the farmer of the Small Tolls at Cockermouth Demanded of Grace Head Spinster the Dam. of John Head of Pardshaw one half penny for a sack of potatoes standing in Cockermouth Market for sale, being the customary paymt. due for the same, weh. she refused to pay and that on the 19th Jan. 1759 the like Demand was made & refusal of paymt. Witnefs my John Stamper.” [11]

In 1830 a meeting was held in the Court House to consider grievances regarding the taking of toll on grain, when it was stated “that the Toll of Corn is One Handful out of each Sack sold in the Market, and no more.” [12]

The castle records of about 1800 include evidence of a further abuse

• “A Practice has gained ground of late years for the owners of Houses in different parts of the Market to receive yearly Rent from persons placing their Stalls in the front of tfleir Shops and Houses … in addition to the halfpenny paid each Monday to Lord Egremont’s lefsee – This should certainly be prevented …. “

It was a natural consequence of Cockermouth’s position that it should be a market not only for domestic needs but also for sheep and cattle. In addition to the Monday market for provisions and grain there were in the 17th century horse and cattle fairs held on the unenclosed land along the Derwent. This was the Sands or Sulwith Sand, stretching from the river to the backs of the Main Street property, now occupied by Waterloo Street. The right to hold this cattle market was granted by Charles I to Algernon, Earl of Northumberland, and his heirs in 1638

• “he may keep a fair in his towne of Cockermouth every Wednesday from the first week of May till Michaelmas” . [13]

The cattle market seems to have gradually moved into Main Street. Bishop Nicholson wrote in 1685 of

• “two streets, one above the river Cocker in which is the Moot Hall, Market House, Corn Market and Shambles; and in the other below is the Beast Market.”

In 1790 the Universal British Directory reported the cattle fair in the spacious street below the bridge, with the horse fair now on common land adjoining Gallowbarrow.[14] The eastern end of Main Street, opposite the Globe Hotel, is traditionally the site for cattle until the present marts were built.

Before considering the growth of the cattle market, we may note two developments in the Market Place area -the Moot Hall and the Market Hall (Fig. 44). There is considerable difficulty in determining what is meant in early references to the moot hall, the tolbooth and the town hall. The Minister’s Accounts mention the tolbooth, where markets tolls were paid, in 1437, 1453 and 1478. There were rents paid for 4 shops subtus le Tolboth. The same accounts in 1437/8 refer to le Motehall being decayed and in the lord’s hands. In view of this, could the moot hall and the tolbooth be the same building? Then in 1547 a court book refers to opeUae and pentes (pent house or lean to) subtus Moythaill and to workshops under the tollbooth. There are the accounts “for the building of the Towne Hall aft Cockermouthe begone in 1690 [15] giving details of payments for the carting and supply of lime, sand, slate, timber, etc., and of the wages paid -10d. a day to wallers and carpenters and 6d. to labourers who helped the wallers. A reasonable conclusion would be that this was a rebuilding of the moot hall, but the difficulty is that the accounts refer not only to the building of the town hall but to new windows being provided in the moot hall. What we can be certain of, from old drawings, is that the moot hall was similar to that still standing in Keswick -an open-sided covered market slightly above street level and, supported on stone pillars and approached by steps at one end, an upper room which was the moot or assembly place where meetings and courts were held. (Plate 9)

In front of a number of the Market Place premises were the wooden fish shambles and an 18th century reference to one house describes

• “Fish Shambles or Fish Stones & the piece or pcel. of grod. whereon the same now stands .. within the Market Place of Cockermouth afsd. in front of the house of the said Jno. Muncaster … with thc liberty of selling and erectg. Fish Shambles or conveniences for exposg. fish to sale … yeady custry. rent of 14d. & subject to the payment of other dues exposing fish for sale.”.. [16]

The hall stood here until 1829 when it was demolished and the stone used in building a new court house.

• “The Moot Hall and wooden Shambles, being a great nuisance to the place, were taken down in 1829”.

Traces of the foundations have been found from time to time when the roadway has been dug up to lay services. This demolition was a serious loss to the market. Activities which had been concentrated there became spread over a wider area and the scattered butchers’ stalls were particularly undesirable, The following letter was sent by a future M.P. for the town to Lord Egremont’s bailiff

• “Dear Sir, The increasing trade and population of Cockermouth have long caused a good Butcher Market out of the Main Street to be much wished for, not only to increase the space in the Main Street appropriated for the Sale of Corn Potatoes etc., but as a place to which the various Stalls and Shambles set up by Butchers in many parts of the Town and are a nuisance to the Market might be removed. We are about to sell a considerable property situated in the Centre of the Market Place above the Bridge which is exceedingly well calculated for a new Butchers’ Market and near to which most of the Slaughter Houses are situate. – I am inclined to think that many persons would be glad to join id the purchase of this property chiefly for the purpose of making a good Market upon the Site, but this would be in vain without the countenance and support of Lord Egremont as owner of the market. If his Lordship would interest himself in the matter and prevent Butchers from setting up Stalls in the Public Streets by which they would be forced into the new market, the scheme of improvement would not only be beneficial to the Town generally, but to the Subscribers … I am Dear Sir, Yours very truly, John Steel. Cockermouth. 16th. April 1836.”[17]

In November the owner sold for £1300, the indenture mentioning George O’Brien Earl of Egremont and Baron of Cockermouth, Abraham Robinson wine and spirit merchant, Thomas Wilson hatter, Jonathan Wood wine and spirit merchant, George Cape builder, John Sancton woollen manufacturer, Jos. Steel and Wm. Bragg gentlemen and H. T. Thompson of Bridekirk. [18] The hall was designed by John Dent, a native of Cockermouth, on the lines of St. John’s Market in Liverpool, and built by a Cockermouth brickmaker and builder, John Mackreth. The money was raised by 106 shares at £25 and £2000 from the Earl of Egremont and the total just cleared the cost. Lord Egremont directed that the interest on his shares should be used “to aid decayed tradesmen in the decline of life” in Cockermouth. [19] The hall, one of the largest in Cumberland, was opened in 1837 and Askew’s description of it in 1866 contrasts strangely with its use until recently as the headquarters of refuse collection.

• “Monday is the chief market day. The market is abundantly stocked with every description of native produce, and to the stranger or tourist is especially worth a visit. From about 10 o’clock in the morning to 12 at noon, the spacious Markethouse is filled with a dense crowd of townspeople, butchers, farmers, portly farmers wives and blooming dairy-maids, all eager to make a profitable exchange of their several commodities. Whilst greengrocers, milliners, dyers, Cheap Johns, and other miscellaneous dealers put forth to the utmost their keenest trading abilities towards turning an honest penny during the short busy harvest.”

Some farmers’ wives kept the household largely on the profits made here on poultry and milk. [20] The Market Company’s purchase included some property and land in Church Lane (later Market Street), of which the Shoulder of Mutton Inn was part, stretching from the Market Place to the church footbridge at the foot of the ‘Stairs’. The new development included the market hall with slaughter houses below it, a fish market lower down than the hall entrance (kept separate from the main market because of the smell), a cottage for the collector of market tolls near the present lavatory site, and three houses and shops in Market Street from the corner to the Plough Inn, which replaced the Shoulder of Mutton. [21]

The market hall opened on 11th December 1837 and the 12 rules drawn up for its management included a charge of Is-6d. per stall per week; a charge of 1d. for each basket brought or 2d. per yard of bench occupied; gas lighting to be provided until 9pm. on Monday and Saturday; with 6am. opening in summer, 7am. in winter. [22] When the Local Board of Health was formed, it bought from the private Market Company the ‘new market house’, cottage, fish house, slaughter house, etc., and the market rights, which had been handed over to the Company’s trustees by Lord Egremont.

The right to hold a market had been granted, as was customary, to the lord of the manor and he was entitled to the payments made for setting up stalls and for pickage (a toll paid for breaking the ground to erect a stall or tent), to the tolls on the sale of produce and cattle, and to the manure and sweepings from the streets.[23] It was these ‘rights’ which Lord Egremont gave to the Company and which passed to the Board, then to the Urban District Council and to Allerdale Council. The money received from the market rights has been a considerable relief to the rates of the town.

The Local Board stated that the Market Hall and Market Hill (Church Brow) were

• “to be appropriated as a market for the sale therein and thereon of butchers’ meat, bacon, pork, cheese, eggs, butter, poultry, geese, pigeons, rabbits, fruit, vegetables, seeds, flower roots, plants, shrubs, provisions, grocery, drapery, glass and earthenware, ironmongery, woodware, boots and shoes, pastry, spices, confectionery, and other marketable commodities.”

Tables were measured off and nobody had a prior claim to any particular position, but farm produce must be given preference. The toll for a basket, etc., not occupying more than half a yard of table or ground was Id. per day. A innkeeper’s tent erected in the cattle market on Fairfield or on the streets was taxed Ss. a day. No badger (a buyer of corn or other commodities to sell elsewhere), batcher (the same?), higgler (itinerant dealer), haggler or hawker was allowed to buy until a certain time, when it was considered that the needs of the townspeople had been supplied. The overflow from the hall lasted into the 20th century, for we read of

• “the butter and general produce market being held on the brow and in the old Market Hall on the left, half way up the hill”.[24]

The hall was filled by stallholders until rationing in the 1939-45 war finally killed marketing in the building and the Ministry of Food used it for storing extra rations, the weight of which brought down a bay so that strengthening buttresses had to be erected.

From about 1965 the Urban District Council used it as a garage for refuse-collection vehicles, having bought it for £1800. The following year young boys set fire to salvaged paper stored inside and the hall was burned down, only the walls remaining. It was rebuilt in the present unfortunate style, when, before the clearing of old property and the opening up of the area as a car park, it was less conspicuous (Fig. 76).

It passed from the Urban District Council to Allerdale District in the 1974 changes. The refuse department ceased to use the building in the early 1990’s and the Town Council leased it in 1995 from Allerdale Borough Council, the present owners. Its future use has not yet been decided. Many Cockermouthians favour its demolition, opening up the view to the churchyard. The weekly Monday domestic market continues in the Market Place. Stalls are few in winter, but increase in the summer months. There was a period in the early 1970s when it was feared the market might die out, partly because the major industrial concern in the town shortened its dinner break and many employees who had visited the market were no longer able to do so, but in recent years there has been some recovery.

There has been talk in recent years of moving the market to another site, but no definite plan has materialised. In 1994 a meeting of all interested parties was held to consider ways of upgrading the Market Place property and activities. Since 1992 it has been closed to traffic on Monday (market day) between 9am. and 4pm. Half day closing for Cockermouth shops was officially ended by the District Council in March 1991, but a few still close at mid-day on Thursdays.

For many years it was the practice for market people to leave their baskets in the barn of the Sun Inn at the lower end of Kirkgate. [25] The barn has been demolished, but it had a useful life not only as a basket store but as a mortuary until a special building was erected in Fairfield and as the venue for Roman Catholic mass before the building ofSt. Joseph’s Church.

The new mortuary building was on the left corner of the entrance to Fairfield from South Street until its demolition in 1982.

Reference has been made to the start of cattle markets and their move to Main Street. The various branches developed in definite areas. The corn market was in the Market Place, based on Walker’s grain shop. The hay market was in South Street, on the south side and well into the 20th century the whole length of the street would be filled by carts of corn, hay and straw, the horses from which were stabled at the Appletree (now the Wordsworth), Bush, Huntsman, etc. All these inns had market rooms. Hay was bought by grocers and other shopkeepers and by Jennings Brewery for cart and delivery horses. (26] On Main Street, pigs were sold near the Police Station, with the fellmongers opposite. Cattle stood from Station Street corner as far as the site of Cleeland’s shop, with sheep opposite them in the area of Boots. A Saturday night market was held for vegetables, etc., from Station Street corner to the Black Bull.[27] There was a public weighing machine here, a short distance east of Station Street.

The sale of horses moved from Main Street to Fairfield in the late 18th. Century

• “Mr. Wordsworth, the bailiff of Cockermouth, formed some useful regulations respecting the public market there, by which the dangerous practice of showing stallions in the street will in future be prevented, and many nuisances lately complained of (particularly that of suffering swine to go in the streets) will be entirely removed.”[28]

In 1790 there is a reference [29] to Cockermouth’s only horse fair being at Michaelmas, but they increased in number. By 1866 there were three, in February, April and October and more in later years. 50 or more animals were frequently advertised and in 1878 the catalogue listed 158. The number of cattle sales also increased over the years and a definite calendar evolved, with sales every Monday and often on Wednesdays when Mitchell’s new mart opened.

A feature of market life which disappeared between the wars was the sale of Irish geese, landed at Silloth or Whitehaven after harvest time. They were driven through melted tar and then sand to prevent sore feet during their long marches. This ‘shoeing’ was done in Cockermouth at the foot of Gote Brow, near the entrance to ‘Senhouse Park’.[30] They were sold as they passed through villages or to and those intended for the Cockermouth market on Monday usually reached the town on Saturday to be rested in Deer Orchard or the field where the hospital now stands.

The trade lasted for about six weeks. They sold at about 4s-6d. to 7s. and some people kept their purchases in the back yard, fattening them on scraps. The better-off families had their first goose on Martinmas Sunday and another at Christmas, with a third on Candlemas Sunday if they could afford. [31 ]

At the bottom end of Fairfield, long the site of horse sales, developed the first auction company.[32] Robinson Mitchell, the founder of the present business, was born in Ullock and, after being apprenticed to his father as a boot and shoe maker, travelled as a journeyman shoemaker. Trade being poor and his heart not really in the job, he joined his brother in his bacon curing business in Cockermouth, but when this too met hard times he collected some of the debts owing to him from his journeyman days and was fortunate in being able to fulfill his ambition to become an auctioneer when John Thwaite, the conductor of country sales in the area, was prevented by ill health from continuing. He issued his first handbill in 1849, which read:

Auctioneer and Appraiser

Robinson Mitchell Respectively informs Statesmen, Farmers, and the

Public in general, that he has taken out a Licence for

the above profession, and he hopes that by diligence,

perserverance, and integrity for those who may

employ him, to meet with a fair share of support.

Cockermouth, November 23rd., 1849.

1. Bailey and Son, Printers, Cockermouth.

Auctions of houses and furniture were held in various inns in the town – at the end of the 18th century in the Globe, the Sign of the Buck, the Sign of the Sun, the Sign of the Ship, etc. Sometimes sales took place in the street. Robinson Mitchell began in the same way. His first sale. when he was 28, was of old furniture and was conducted in the street. Then he sold some timber in Wythop Woods and his first farming stock sale was at Mosser for William Green. He noticed that stock sales often dragged on from 10am. to 8 or 9 p.m., with much private bargaining, and that a man might take his beast home having wasted the whole day trying to sell it. Often a complete day was spent ‘higgling and piggling’ over half-a-crown in a £5 sale. He decided to start selling at 72 Main Street where he lived, later J. W. Mounsey’s grocery shop. The cattle stood in the garden and yard, which were covered with a four-inch layer of clinker; the horses stood where the warehouse now is and temporary pens were erected on the street.[33]

Mitchell moved to Fairfield on the first Monday in March 1860, using similar pens and then a wooden shed, and on Michaelmas Day 1865 he opened the Agricultural Hall on the west side of Station Street, probably the first auction mart in Cumberland. The firm, which became Mitchell, Bowe and Mitchell, progressed well, both in the Fairfield mart and in selling property, for which the Sun Inn and the Globe Hotel were used.

Then came opposition from a new concern, the Cockermouth Auctioneering and Estate Agency Co. Ltd., which erected a mart with a sale ring, stalls for 50 cattle and sheep pens at the top of Station Street, on the opposite side to Mitchell’s, and like it conveniently placed for the station, an important factor when many animals were moved by rail. The company, formed in 1873 with a capital of £5000 raised in 1,000 – £5 shares, had an office at 80 Main Street and began Monday auctions in the new mart on 1st June 1874. [34]

The older concern was worried by this development and on legal advice turned itself, in 1873, into a limited company, Mitchell’s Auction Co. Ltd., charging a commission of 4d. in the pound and guaranteeing a 4% dividend for the first three years.

Robinson Mitchell kept the outside work separate from the new company – real estate, furniture and farming stock. This section remained a purely family concern for three generations until bought by the company in 1947. Activities were varied. There is, for example, a press report of a sale in 1877 which dealt with bank, railway, auction mart and factory shares.[35] The true auctioneer was a professional, consulted about buying and selling, valuing for probate, the procedure on retirement or in bankruptcy, as well as the routine cattle sales. An earlier take-over had been the purchase in 1921 of the rival concern, which had become Hall’s Farmers’ Auction.

Mitchell’s thus came to own not only the two marts, but the present sites of the Grand Theatre, the County Garage, the Methodist Church, the Preston Farmers and the Rampant Bull, all of which except the auction buildings were sold during the 60 years up to 1970.

Fairfield House had been built as a family residence in 1868 (three Mitchell brothers born there married three Peacock sisters from the Globe Hotel), and this too was sold – to the Council, who used it as a food rationing office during the 1939-45 war. The Company bought it back in 1964 to convert into offices and a flat.

Since 1950 considerable work has been done on the Company’s premises – new penning, concreting, extending, etc. New developments have been the abattoir (1963) and the Fairfield Restaurant (1964). The last amalgamation brought in the Whitehaven and West Cumberland Auctioneering Company in 1960. To mark the centenary of a company which has played a big part in the life of Cockermouth the share capital was increased from £60,000 to £90,000.

Some numbers of animals passing through Mitchell’s mart are given below – there would also have been sales of poultry, straw, hay, implements, etc.

(The law forbids dealing in fat and store pigs on the same day, and the small numbers involved do not justify dealing in the latter)

Some indication of prices in 1874 and 1978

1874 Michaelmas fair [37]

Bullocks £20; Heifers £16; Irish cattle £4 to £7; Agricultural horses £20-£50; Good draught horses £40-£80; Ponies £15-£20

1978 (average)

Fat cattle £344 per animal 68.5p/kg; Fat sheep £28 per animal (140p/kg); Fat pigs £46 per animal (65.5p/kg)

In the 1875 Christmas sale a fat sheep would fetch about £5 7s. 6d , so that in real money terms a sheep is now worth considerably less than 100 years ago. In 1995 the market tolls are 1 p per sheep, 2p per pig and 5p for one prime beast. These are collected by the auctioneer for payment to Allerdale Borough Council, the payment being simplified by taking an average block figure for the year. [38] The 1995 calendar was a market every Monday for sale of butchers’ cattle; every Wednesday (recently increased from fortnightly sale) cast cows, prime bulls and light weight lambs for European market, also One Friday per month – store cattle. The firm found it necessary to move to another site when European Union directives made the South Street site unviable. After much delay, due to negotiations with potential supermarket interests and then the Foot and Mouth crisis in 2001, the company moved in 2002 to a site off the A66 roundabout at Oakhurst, now known as the Lakeland Agricultural Centre.

In 1978 Allerdale Council decided not to renew the Irish cattle licence.[39] Irish cattle were sold at the lower end of Fairfield in pens which belong to the Council, a very flourishing business which was conducted through Cumbrian ports and the extensive cattle pens at Cockermouth station. The trade having now died out, there was no value in bringing up to present standards the feeding and watering facilities in Fairfield, hence the decision not to continue the licence and to demolish the pens. The horse drinking trough which once stood in the north-east corner of Fairfield was moved to Stanwix, whence it originated, about the end of 1985.

The hiring fairs of Whitsun and Martinmas, great events in the life of Cockermouth and district, began in 1349 when labourers, shepherds and ploughmen were freed from serfdom by Edward III and had to obey the Statutes of Labourers which he introduced to regulate their employment. One statute compelled them to go to the nearest market town twice a year to offer their labour for hire, on penalty of being placed in the stocks.

At first the regulation was largely ineffective but eventually these hiring fairs became firmly established, known in some parts of the country as ‘statiz’ from the word ‘statutes’. The great survey of 1578 records

• “There is in the saide towne of Cockermouth a markett every weeke kept uppon the mondaie and alsoe twoe faires in the yere the one uppon Whitson mundaie and the other uppon the feast of St. Michaell tharchangell.”

The hiring at first took place in the castle ‘yard’ [40], probably the castle green at the top of Castle Street as it was then known; but for most of their existence the hirings were situated in Castlegate and the Cocker Bridge end of Market Place, the women and girls latterly being separated and using the Market Hall. (Plate 10). The numbers appearing for hire dwindled before the 1939-45 war and hiring finally ceased altogether by about 1950. The scene in about 1800 has been described thus

• “Early this fine May morning the long wide street of Darwinside (Cockermouth) is alive with fair-day folk putting up their stands and booths, hammering and tying up, busy as bees … Now the lads and lasses are congregating in the market-place, and in the narrow street going up to the castle; and here the farmers, with their sturdy wives, go to choose their servants for the half-year. There stand the stout, fresh-looking girls ready to close with the first good offer. There, in another line, stand the youths and young men, each having a piece of straw in his hatband to signify that he is open for an engagement. Now a master comes up to one of the young men, terms are arranged, the piece of straw is pulled out, the master hands a shilling as earnest money, and the bargain is made. So much for the half-year ending at Martinmas, when a new bargain may have to be made or the old one renewed.” [41]

Farmers and master craftsmen seeking employees for the next six months were helped in their search by the emblems or tools displayed by those needing work. A carter had a length of whipcord in his hat; a cowherd or dairymaid pinned cow hair to their clothes. A blacksmith had his hammer, a carpenter his saw, etc [42] Two days before the hiring of May 1874 the West Cumberland Times spoke of the degrading process of public scrutiny of the men and women’s physical condition. When the Urban District took over the market they issued regulations for the conduct of markets, sales and fairs. The 21 items listed in the 1909 edition included

• “Fairs shall be held … Whit Monday and following Monday, Hiring of Servants, Pleasure and Amusement. 11th. November … and the next following Monday … (variations when 11th. not a Monday) … Hiring of Servants, Pleasure and Amusement. The Hiring of Servants shall be held in Castlegate.”

Pay depended on demand. In 1783, for example, there was the greatest number of servants available for many years and wages were consequently low. 1790 rates averaged £10 a year for men and £4 for women. In 1874 most men could get about £20 for a half year, the better workers perhaps £22, inferior ones only £15 to £18. Lads for team work were paid £10 to £12, women £10 or £1 1, girls £5 to £8. In 1880 wages had dropped appreciably.

Labourers and servants shared the meal table of their employers. As one woman still living (1979) in Cockermouth put it, they looked for ‘not so much a wage as getting a good meat shop.’ The men usually slept in the house, the girls and women certainly did. Wages improved – the woman quoted earned £3 a week, but a 1979 Cockermouth resident remembered being hired for £7 a half-year, then eventually earning £7 a week.[43] Hours of work were very long, from perhaps 5-30am. to 6-30pm. and much later at hay-time and harvest. If a man had two hours off on Sunday afternoon he would have to be back in time for milking. Single men had more freedom than married, for they could move at the end of a six-month hiring, while those married were more tied to the job.

The 1909 UDC regulations mentioned pleasure and amusement at the hirings. For many hired men and women, and often for the younger members of farming families, these were the only two occasions in the year when they got away from their village or isolated farm. As transport improved the fairs attracted people from further afield – 9,000 arrived in the town by train alone for the 1874 Whitsun hiring. [44] There was all the fun of the fair – swings, cake-walks, roundabouts, shooting galleries and a host of stalls, with more sophisticated swing-boats, etc., as these were developed. Early this century BiddIes Theatre, complete with fairground organ, presented its Ghost Show to packed houses and when Mr. BiddIes died he was brought to Cockermouth for burial and was reputed to have the finest headstone in the cemetery. There was dancing all day in the Drill Hall and the Appletree dance room.

Not all the entertainment provided was of this quality and the grotesque played a part, such as the exhibition of an emaciated youth far gone in consumption. The amusements lining Main Street in 1874 Whit hiring were described by the West Cumberland Times [45] as ‘ragabash’, mostly human monstrosities and curiosities. They were reported no better the following November and this time there was the additional comment that

• “A considerable part of Main Street was lined with stalls Piled up with ginger-bread and other similar delectable substances that had been coated with the dust and mud of twenty market towns.” [46]

These occasional visits to the town were accompanied by rowdyism and drunkenness. Cousin Charley wrote in the ‘Chat’ column of his children’s magazine, following the Whitsun fair in 1900

• ‘Hiring fairs are to me neither edifying or entertaining. The deafening din, the gaudy tinsel, and the jostling crowds have nothing attractive about them whilst drunkenness and rowdyism which are apparently the necessary accompaniments are decidedly objectionable. Of course, I know that some allowance has to be made for the farm servants, who, after being isolated in some quiet country district for six months, wish to make the most of their brief spell of freedom and possibly do not do this in the best or wisest manner.” [47]

He goes on to contrast fair days with the better behaviour on the occasion of festivals and patriotic demonstrations. As the isolation of the farm worker lessened and visits to Cockermouth became more frequent the less desirable aspects of ‘fair day’ diminished.

When the fair was in Main Street traffic was diverted round the town, using the narrow entrance from the Market Place into Kirkgate, Victoria Road, Lorton Street, South Street and the then equally narrow opening of Sullart Street on to Crown Street. There were repeated objections to having it in Main Street because of the noise, smoke, dirt and the disturbance of arrival and erection during Saturday or Sunday night. Yet in 1930 tradesmen in the Cocker Bridge-Market Place area were asking that they might have amusements there as they were ‘missing out’. As far back as the 1870s the press was pointing out that the town had bought Fairfield for £2000 and the rates were burdened with £80 a year interest on this sum, yet the caravans were still in Main Street. [48] The Local Board discussed a move in 1876 [49] and doubtless the matter came before the Board many times in the next 80 years.

It was the increasing size of road transport serving the factories of West Cumbria and the difficulty if not impossibility of long lorries and buses negotiating the alternative route through the town which finally drove the stalls and sideshows to the Fairfield car park. This was about 1970 and there was a hope, supported by the Cockermouth Town Council and a majority of the Chamber of Trade, that it would return to Main Street when the new A66 was opened.[50] This hope did not materialise. The Showmen’s Guild is happy – they prefer the Fairfield site [51] – but the town has lost a feature. There was something very appealing in the view of the town centre packed with stalls and massive fairground erections from Kirkgate to Sullart Street, particularly after dark when crowded with lights and life.

(Further examples of market tolls – Appendices 11 and 12)