'Hiring Fairs and Market Places' by May Blair, published by Appletree Press

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extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair.

COUNTY DOWN

Although far behind Newry in size and importance Banbridge, as well as being an important linen town, had good markets, fairs and hiring fairs. Under a patent dated 1767 the Marquis of Downshire had power to hold a weekly market and five fairs annually. However it is certain fairs were held there before that date. In those days the market house stood in the middle of the main thoroughfare but it was demolished in 1834 to make way for the cutting linking Bridge Street and Newry Street. A new market house was then built by the Marquis at the corner of Scarva Street and Bridge Street. Butter and eggs were sold nearby. The general market was in Victoria Street.
The market rights were transferred to Town Commissioners in 1881 when the markets for pork, flax, grass seed, fowl, butter, eggs, hay, straw, grain and turnips were taken off the streets and moved to more suitable sites within the town. Eggs, pork and butter were bought by dealers and transported to Belfast in carts for export to England. Cattle and sheep were sold on the first Monday of every month and a day was set aside in the months of January, April, June, August and November for the sale of cattle and horses only. Banbridge was known far and wide for the quality of its horses, being second only in importance to Moy. Two thousand horses were sold there during 1834, together with three thousand cows, six thousand pigs and two thousand sheep. Many of Belfast’s working horses were purchased in Banbridge. Just before World War I foreign horse dealers were seen at Banbridge and other fairs. One, a German called Vanderbelt, would sometimes buy as many as six hundred horses and ship them back to Germany which was at that time preparing for war. No one seemed to notice that he was buying up all the best horses or to realise that these would be used amongst other things for pulling cannons.
For around a century Banbridge’s poor were looked after in the workhouse in Linenhall Street. They both grew and consumed the vegetables produced in the eleven acres of land surrounding it. At one time they wove coarse cloth, no doubt also for ‘home’ use. Newtownards was another good market town. It was founded by Sir Hugh Montgomery in 1606 at which time ‘there was not a cabin in or about the place’. Fairs were established and a market house built around this time. The original market house and fair green were situated just beyond the old Town Cross near to Hugh Montgomery’s house. The cross bears the Montgomery Coat of Arms and the date ‘1636’ – also the Arms of other leading families of the day. What we see today is really only the pedestal of the cross in the shape of a small octagonal building which once served as a chamber for the Watch, and as a repository for the safe-keeping of the drunk and disorderly. It has a weather vane on top surmounted by a lion.
A market cross was a focal point in any town and was used not only for making promises and sealing bargains but also as a platform for making announcements of interest to the townspeople. When Charles II was proclaimed king for instance, it was announced in Newtownards from the market cross. According to legend claret flowed from the spouts around it in celebration. Trumpets and drums sounded too and bonfires were lit in the streets that night. Market crosses existed in a number of places (Dromore, Limavady and Coleraine, for instance), but Newtownards has the only one of its kind to survive. The town suffered as a market town from its proximity to Belfast. To overcome this, co-operative shops were set up around 1800 to encourage people to spend their money locally. One hundred people invested £1 each in the co-operative to sell the commodity of their choice – groceries, delph, etc. People were appointed to do the selling, and profits were distributed half-yearly. The shops were regulated by ‘people of respectability and clergymen of different denominations.’
A few years later Newtownards was described as ‘a neat town, generally clean, although neither watched, paved, lighted or cleansed.’ The present town hall (once the market house) dates from around 1763. It is a handsome building at the north end of the Square. Its eastern end was once used as a potato and grain store and the western end for the sale of fresh meat. The weekly market has always been held on Saturday. Fairs at which horses and black cattle were sold were held on the second Saturday of each month throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. In addition three old fairs were held in January, May and September. Hiring died out in the town shortly after World War I though normal markets and fairs continued for many years. Although two out of three families were at that time spinning and weaving, the cloth produced was used at home and there was no linen market in the town. Anyone with surplus cloth took it to Belfast.However, as in Banbridge, Newry and many other towns, the workhouse offered boys training in agriculture on the workhouse land and doubtless some of them eventually found work on farms in the area. Others received instruction in tailoring and cobbling, as did able-bodied paupers. Girls were taught knitting, sewing and other domestic tasks.

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