Now Market Street has always been one of those places where you can pretty much buy anything.
It wasn’t always the pedestrian haven it is today, and until the 1970s it remained a street where buses, cars, and lorries trundled down from Piccadilly past all manner of shops.
Go back to 1820 and all that traffic was compounded by a thoroughfare which was much narrower and decidedly lower than today.
The first serious road widening scheme a decade later, also altered the level of the street, so that “Market Street had been raised at the lower end and lowered at the middle part.
Consequently the floor of Newall’s shop was lower than the level of the street, and to enter it you had to descend by a step”, while at another point the street had dropped sufficiently low that “the footpath on one side was on a sort of bank, which separated the carriageway from the path.”*
For those with a fascination of the early 19th century, the street was full of a variety of shops, inns and hotels, and because there was still “a heavy duty on all kinds of glass….. not a single shop window contained any plate glass, but shop windows were composed of shall squares of ordinary crown glass” which resulted in many customers demanding that they inspect goods in the street where the light was better.**
All of which is a far cry from the acres of glass that make up the Market Street of today.
But then as now, there will have been the street sellers, whose goods might have changed over the last two centuries, but whose presence either on static sights or wandering up and down have always been a feature of the street.
Amongst the 19th century vendors would have flower sellers, brush makers and a host of street food stalls.
The latter were particularly popular given that many living and working in the city, had no access to a kitchen at home and bought breakfast, lunch, and their evening meal on the way to or from work.
The pie seller and the bread man pop up in the novels of Charles Dickens and in the pages of Mayhew's book on London in the 1850s.***
Which of course is an introduction to the these four images of street selling, on Market Street.
They were taken in the space of ten minutes on a June day, when the sun shone, and people were happy.
Location; Market Street, Manchester
Pictures; selling something on Market Street, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*Slugg, J.T. Reminiscences of Manchester Fifty Years Ago, 1881, pages 3-5
**ibid Slugg, page 6
***Mayhew, Henry, London Labour & the London Poor 1851
Go back to 1820 and all that traffic was compounded by a thoroughfare which was much narrower and decidedly lower than today.
The first serious road widening scheme a decade later, also altered the level of the street, so that “Market Street had been raised at the lower end and lowered at the middle part.
Consequently the floor of Newall’s shop was lower than the level of the street, and to enter it you had to descend by a step”, while at another point the street had dropped sufficiently low that “the footpath on one side was on a sort of bank, which separated the carriageway from the path.”*
All of which is a far cry from the acres of glass that make up the Market Street of today.
But then as now, there will have been the street sellers, whose goods might have changed over the last two centuries, but whose presence either on static sights or wandering up and down have always been a feature of the street.
The latter were particularly popular given that many living and working in the city, had no access to a kitchen at home and bought breakfast, lunch, and their evening meal on the way to or from work.
The pie seller and the bread man pop up in the novels of Charles Dickens and in the pages of Mayhew's book on London in the 1850s.***
Which of course is an introduction to the these four images of street selling, on Market Street.
They were taken in the space of ten minutes on a June day, when the sun shone, and people were happy.
Pictures; selling something on Market Street, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*Slugg, J.T. Reminiscences of Manchester Fifty Years Ago, 1881, pages 3-5
**ibid Slugg, page 6
***Mayhew, Henry, London Labour & the London Poor 1851
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