Page 33 - Market Times April 2024

MARKET TIMES • APRIL 2024 33 Turning the clock back to market days in medieval times
Cheery smile from the pie-maker
Dedicated leather worker
A NEW market set up stall in Northallerton in North Yorkshire recently with some unusual traders specialising in unique lines, including freshly struck coins and pies that were on the menu hundreds of years ago.
But the town’s popular Wednesday and Saturday market has nothing to fear from the competition.
The medieval market was a one-off event staged to give an insight into what markets were like between 1066 and 1307, and to mark the end of a three-year programme that has boosted cultural and heritage schemes in the town.
The Heritage Action Zone Programme funded by Historic England and led by North Yorkshire Council saw the opening of a Heritage Hub on the high street and the erection of a sculpture on the site of the town’s prison commemorating the
life of an 11-year-old girl who was jailed for stealing a loaf of bread.
The medieval market depicted the type of stalls and traders, all in authentic costumes, who would have been on the market hundreds of years ago.
There was a baker serving freshly baked bread and a nun offering measures of different herbs.
A pie-maker tempted locals with a range of pies that tickled the taste buds of townsfolk all those years ago — pease pudding and cheese pie were hot favourites.
A leather worker plied his trade on his stall.
A woman spun wool and a coin striker also went about his trade.
The event, hosted by a renowned re- enactment company, Conquest Living History, attracted a lot of attention from weekend shoppers fascinated by this glimpse into markets of long ago.
A nun offering a selection of herbs