100 



VI.— MARKETS AND FAIRS. 



KENDAL. 



KENDAL Market has been held on Saturdays since the twelfth 

 century, being established by Charter in the reign of Richard I., 

 and two fairs annually, one on the " eve day and morrow of the 

 Feast of St. Mark " and the other on the " eve day and morrow of the 

 Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude." St. Mark's day is now April 25th 

 and St. Simon and St. Jude's day October 28th, on neither of which 

 days have fairs been held during the past century. The author of 

 " England described, or the Traveller's Companion," 1776, says 

 Kendal " has a market on Saturdays and two fairs annually, viz., on 

 May 6th and November 8th, for horses, cattle, and sheep." By 

 advertisement in the Lancaster Gazette, April 12th, 1805, the Mayor, 

 Thos. Harrison, gave notice that the fair, which " has been holden 

 on the 27th, will in future be held on the 29th of April." Hodgson, 

 writing in 1814, says, " At present Kendal has three cattle Fairs, viz. : 

 on March 22nd, April 29th, and November 8th and gth, and between 

 the two last a cattle Fair once a fortnight." Meat was exposed in the 

 Butchers' Rows, open stalls, on either side of High Street from the 

 Pump Inn down to the New Biggin, where they remained till the Old 

 Shambles, opposite the Commercial Hotel, were built about 1782. The 

 New Shambles were built in 1804 between Finkle Street and the Market 

 Place, though butchers' stalls still remained in the street till 1816, when 

 they were finally removed. Cattle were exposed for sale in Highgate 

 once a fortnight during the summer months tiU 1825, when they were 

 removed to the New Road ; on market days butter, eggs, potatoes, pigs, 

 and other produce were shown in the Market Place, but the position of 

 the other markets was somewhat indefinite in the first two decades of 

 the century. The old Market Hall underneath St. George's Chapel was 

 occupied by the corn market, in which thirty loads of oats and a little 

 barley was a full show ; at the beginning of the century there was little 

 or no wheat exposed. Owing to the fertility of the newly inclosed com- 

 mons the business of the corn market rapidly increased and in 1814 it 

 was found necessary to remove the potato market from the market 

 place into Stramongate in order to make room for the oat market, 

 which was removed from the front of the Globe Inn. 



