Talk by Nick Herbert, editor of the Victoria History of the County of Gloucester, in April 2023. Report by Stephen Griffiths.
The first out-of town shopping mall in the UK was Brent Cross which opened in 1976. Since then they have sprouted all over the country, our nearest and dearest being Cribbs Causeway, changing the landscape and the habits of shoppers. The 12th century also saw a new type of shopping centre, the planned market town, which had an even bigger impact on the landscape and lives of the people.
At the time of the Domesday book there were only about 50 market towns in England. The 12th century climate was benign, vineyards were expanding, harvests were overflowing, the population was rising, the economy was booming and becoming based more on cash than barter. Lords of the manors, be they barons or bishops, grabbed a piece of the action by developing their land, and by the time of the Black Death in 1348 there were over 2000 market towns, newly planned and purpose-built around a square (or triangle or rectangle). One of the first to be established was Stow on the Wold in 1107.
Burgage plots, 16 yards wide by 100 yards long, would be set out around the market square and rented to traders to build their shops and storerooms. The traders would be given inducements and freedoms to encourage them to take a plot. They would owe the landowner only a cash rent rather than the traditional days of labour. They would not be tied to the manor, and they could pass on the property in their will. Hopefully shoppers from a seven-mile radius would bring their cash into town, and a good portion would end up in the coffers of the lord of the manor.
The lords had to buy a grant from the king to develop a market, and then they could draw up a charter to lay out the conditions for the traders. Thornbury, although originally a market mentioned in Domesday, has a charter drawn up by the Earl of Gloucester in 1252 stating that his burgage plot holders, or burgesses, will enjoy the same rights and privileges as those of Tewkesbury.
Tewkesbury prospered from its position on the Severn north of Gloucester. It could intercept goods from the productive north of the county and a fierce rivalry grew between the towns. Both held markets on Saturday and adopted various sharp practices to gain advantage, investigated in 1380 by a government enquiry. Gloucester traders waylaid farmers going to Tewkesbury, and tried to extract tolls on Tewkesbury boats, hurling stones from the West Gate by the river. Such was the disruption that some traders set up an unofficial market (like a car-boot sale) at Haw Bridge.
Gloucestershire’s speculating landowners tried to establish 42 new markets towns but only half of these prospered amongst the fierce competition. Some were too close to other markets, or perhaps the roads to get goods and customers to market were not good enough. Most of the surviving market towns are on main medieval roads such as the Fosse Way. Prestbury was out-competed by Cheltenham. Tockington, Tytherington and Almondsbury reverted to quiet rural villages while Thornbury and Chipping Sodbury grew. Sodbury, whose charter dates from 1227, lies on the main Bristol to Cirencester road and also on a salt route, by which salt would be transported south from its source at Droitwich.
As with all booms there comes a bust. In the 14th century the climate took a turn for the worse and then the Black Death put a stop to all development for quite a while.