The market charter

The grant

The original charter does not survive. Its text is known from the copy enrolled by the royal chancery at the time, and from the confirmation of 1384, of which the borough kept a copy. In English, the grant reads:

Know that we have granted, and by this our charter confirmed, to Ralph de Wengeberge that he and his heirs for ever shall have a market every week on Thursday at his manor of Wengeberge, and a fair there every year lasting three days, that is to say on the vigil, the day and the morrow of St Laurence, unless that market and that fair be to the harm of neighbouring markets and fairs.

The last clause was the usual protection for markets already held nearby. The vigil, day and morrow of St Laurence are 9, 10 and 11 August.

The borough and the market

The lord of the manor laid out plots for burgesses round the market place, and by 1300 Vengerberg had the burgesses, rents and borough court of a small town. The confirmation of 1384 allowed the burgesses to keep the tolls of the market in return for a yearly rent to the lord, and the borough collected them until 1835.

The clerk of the market checked weights and measures and stamped them with the star of the borough; the pewter pint in the Market Town gallery carries the mark. The Shambles, the butchers’ row off the square, were roofed in 1690.

The fair

The August fair was the town’s great event for six hundred years, a fair for cloth and cattle and then for horses and hiring. It dwindled with the railway, and was last held in 1874. The Lilac Fair in May, begun in 1899, is not a charter fair and has no connection with it except the place.

The market today

The Thursday market is held in the Market Square from 8.00 to 14.00, with about eighteen stalls. It is run by the town council, which took over the market rights when the borough was abolished in 1974. The Trust has no part in running it.

The museum’s talk on the charter fair is in the What’s on listings for the winter.