A Brief History of Pembridge Market Hall

Pembridge is a quintessentially English village nestling in the rolling north Herefordshire countryside and considered to be the heart of the Black and White Village Trail. It lies just south of the River Arrow and some seven miles from the market towns of Kington to the west and Leominster to the east.

First mentioned in the Doomsday Book of 1086, the village was clearly well established at this time occupying some 1,300 acres in today’s measurement. However the village is almost certainly of pre-Conquest date, suggested by recent excavations of the moated site south of the existing church and the theory that if the Canons of St Guthlac’s held it prior to 1086 there would almost certainly have been a Saxon church, probably on the same site as the existing building.

Pembridge received it’s charter for a weekly market and annual fair in 1239. A market was held every Monday in Pembridge and there were at least two annual fairs in May and November. The main fair, sometimes referred to as the Cowslip Fair, was held on 15 May and was still a regular event until the 1940s. In addition, a Woodcock Fair took place on St Martin’s Day in November. According to James Wall, a former 19th century resident, these fairs filled the town, with stalls lining the streets and a variety of sideshows and fairground rides. Both of these fairs became hiring fairs, a practice which continued well into the 1920s. The May Fair in Pembridge is said to have been the largest hiring fair in Herefordshire with farmers arriving from throughout the county in search of labourers.

The Market Hall stands at the centre of the Square on a north/south axis and on the original site of the mediaeval market. An important and unusual feature of the site is that it retains its original mark stone, which is located near the SW corner of the Market Hall. These ‘mark’, ‘march’ or ‘merch’ stones settled the place where people first gathered to exchange goods and from which the term ‘market’ derives.

A mediaeval cross base of the typical square to octagonal section supports the post at the NE corner of the Market Hall and may belong to the former market cross on the site, which superseded the present building.

A dendrochronolgical (tree ring dating) survey was carried out in 2002 by Dr Ian Tyers of Arcus Dendrochronolgy, Sheffield University. The report indicates a construction date of between 1502 and 1538.

The last restoration project was carried out in 1927 and more information about this is given on page 11. At this time the Market Hall was given, by the brewery who owned the New Inn, to the Parish Council. The ownership of the Market Hall passed to Pembridge Amenity Trust on it’s formation in 1996. The Trust is a registered charity, number 1060265, with the objective of caring for the historic public buildings in the village, specifically the octagonal detached Bell Tower adjacent to St Mary’s Church which has been dendro dated to between 1207 and 1214, and the Market Hall. It is thanks to the unpaid members of this trust that the Market Hall is now in such excellent condition.

Research

Before any work was done a great deal of research was carried out by a variety of professionals. Nick Joyce, architect and historic building consultant, carried out a detailed survey and produced a conservation plan in 2001. This plan documents the history, location and condition of the building and highlighted the need for action to preserve the structure for future generations.

In 2002, Dr Ian Tyers of Arcus Dendrochronology, Sheffield University undertook tree ring dating on a number of timbers in the structure. The results indicate a date range from 1502 to 1538, suggesting it is probably the oldest building of its type in the country.

In June 2003, Hereford Archaeology dug a metre square test pit in the floor of the Market Hall (adjacent to the second post from the south west) to establish if the floor was original. Finds included animal bones, pottery fragments and clay pipes, indicating that people had been eating and smoking outside the pub for many years. The compacted earth floor proved to be original. A very rare feature as most were paved over in the Victorian era. The floor has been retained in the conservation process.

The Moreton Partnership carried out a structural survey which concluded that, although the Market Hall has a lean to the north it was structurally stable and correcting the lean could be detrimental to the structure. Sarah Butler of Trevor Hewett Architects produced a variety of reports and managed the project. Copies of all these reports are lodged with Pembridge Amenity Trust.

Prior to work starting Marches Archaeology were commissioned to establish the different repair phases in the history of the Market Hall and one of the many drawings they produced is shown above. Dating evidence for one of the phases became more accurate when a penny dating from 1806 was discovered at the base of the north east post by Capps and Capps craftsman, Barry Goodman. The penny was duly returned together with a current pound coin to show to future generations the two dates that work was undertaken on this important building.

A drawing of the New Inn and part of the Market Hall by James Wathen, believed to have been produced in 1804, shows the roof of the Market Hall as being gabled and with no finials on the building. By 1842, the painting by E E Smith (see font cover) shows the roof hipped and with finials. It is possible, although there is no other evidence, that the roof may have been changed at this time and the finials introduced.

The Opening Celebrations

Following the completion of the conservation process the building was handed back to the care of Pembridge Amenity Trust. In keeping with the policy of local people and materials and traditional techniques being used wherever possible, it was decided to mark the occasion with a ceremony at the May 2005 Farmers Market. These monthly markets had continued in the square throughout the building process even when the Market Hall itself was unavailable.

Rev Julie Read, Rector of the Arrowvale Group of Parishes, opened the proceedings with a prayer of thanks and a blessing. She then handed over to village historian Kath Aston who, at 87 has spent all her life in Pembridge. Kath thanked everyone involved in the project and urged the villagers to use the Market Hall as it had always been used - as the centre of the community. She then cut a red ribbon, held around the building by local children and declared the Farmers Market open. A brisk trade in local produce followed.

The 1927 Restoration

The last recorded repair of the building was carried out in 1927. In 1923 Sidney Barnsley and Alfred Powell visited Pembridge to examine the Market Hall on behalf of The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. It was then in a poor state of repair and, ‘had been in danger of collapse for several years’.

The building was then owned by the Alton Court Brewery Ltd of Ross-on-Wye. Ownership of the Market Hall by the proprietors of the New Inn would appear to have a long tradition and included certain rights and responsibilities, notably the right to use the frontage to the inn for the benefit of their customers.

In 1925, Pembridge Parish Council approached the brewery and expressed its concern about the condition of the building. In a letter dated 23 November 1925, it was agreed that in return for the brewery contributing £25 towards the repair of the building and surrendering their right of ownership to the Pembridge Parish Council, the latter would take responsibility for its repair. It was also agreed that the brewery would subscribe a guinea each year towards the restoration fund so long as the Parish Council would not interfere with the brewery’s other claimed rights. A public appeal was launched to raise money for the repair of the building. G H Jack, the County Surveyor, a member of the SPAB and of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club, played a valuable role in fund-raising and he surveyed the building and supervised the work without charge. His survey revealed that the Market Hall was, indeed, on the point of collapse. Most of the bases of the posts were rotten, and that at the SW corner had given way and had ‘caused the building to lean heavily to the west’ thereby dislocating most of the tenons. The roof structure was also recorded to be in a very poor condition.

Extensive repair work was carried out in Spring 1927 by Messrs Beavan and Hodges of Victoria Street, Hereford. This included the replacement of the SW corner post in its entirety, and a new section was scarfed into place to reinforce the SE corner post. Both these, and three other posts, were supplied with new stone bases with mild steel locating bars inserted to fix the feet of the posts. The SE post and the post immediately N of it were set on concrete foundations. A new end was scarfed onto the tiebeam of the southernmost truss, and some of the brackets were replaced at this time and reinforced with iron bolts. The structure was further strengthened by two wrought iron tie beams. These were fixed longitudinally to brace the arcade plates. The roof was stripped, and the ridge pole and battens were replaced and new eaves poles installed. It was then re-laid by Arthur Evans, a Pembridge craftsman, using some salvaged tiles and around 800 new tiles. Lead capping was laid along the ridge and round the finials. The total cost of this work amounted to £133 19s 7d.

Following these works, an application for scheduling the structure as an Ancient Monument was submitted by Pembridge Parish Council to the Ministry of Works and approved in Autumn 1927. The building was listed Gade II* on the 16th October 1967 and was de-scheduled as an Ancient Monument in 1997 when English Heritage sought to eradicate duplication.

Pembridge Amenity Trust Project Coordinator

Jen Myers

Pembridge

Architects

Trevor Hewett Architects

Hereford

Main Contractors

Capps and Capps

Sarnesfield

Structural Engineers

The Moreton Partnership

London

Archaeology

Marches Archaeology

Clun

Roofing Contractors

Phillips & Sons

Abergavenny

Design, Photography & Video

Robert Anderson

Pembridge

Past press releases:

1. A brief history of the Market Hall.
2. Current state of the Market Hall.
3. Work to be carried out.
4. Initial Work.
5. 1806 Penny Discovered.
6. Project Completion.
7. Films released.