FOR several centuries one of Worcester’s traditional market places stood alongside High Street opposite the Guildhall. Indeed, there is still a retail arcade there today, but of a very different character.

It’s not clear just how long ago the area developed as a trading place, although in the 18th century when the King’s Head Inn occupied the site, the pub’s large yard formed general market with a cluster of stalls and awnings. But at the start of the 19th century public opinion demanded a special market hall for these activities and in 1804 the King’s Head was pulled down to make way for just such a building.

It had an imposing stone frontage supported by columns bearing the city’s Coat of Arms and in 1849 the mayor, Richard Padmore, added anther handsome feature with his gift of a 5ft diameter clock with self-illuminated dials lit by gas.

But changing fashions led the public to press for a new and bigger market hall. The Great Exhibition in Hyde Park set new standards for trade buildings and during the 1850s the High Street market hall was pulled down and rebuilt, all except for its stone façade.

A Worcester guidebook of 1855 observed: “The general appearance of the building on entering reminds the visitor of the transept of the Great Exhibition of 1851 of which it is a copy, the centre of the roof is glass, the sides of corrugated iron, the whole being supported by iron pillars.” The new structure was 233ft long and the Chrystal Palace in miniature.

In its 19th-century heyday the High Street market hall was said “to vie with any other of its size in the kingdom for its elegance of design and accommodation”. Until the middle of the century it was a thriving trading place where country people from a wide surrounding area brought their butter, eggs, bacon, cheese flowers and the produce to sell.

But it began to decline in popularity and after the Second World War some planners urged that it be demolished and the site paved over to create a wide pedestrian piazza in front of the Guildhall and through to the Shambles.

However that was not to be and the Market Hall fell victim to a 1960s development scheme which saw it turned into a rather bland shopping arcade. This has subsequently been revamped. but the only surviving feature of the original market hall, Mayor Padmore’s fine clock, looks a little incongruous on such a modern building.