Monmouth has been a market town for over a thousand years and this tradition continues to the present day.
Monmouth was a bustling and industrious place, with potteries, tanneries, nail-making and cappers’ workshops, all of which must have led to a considerable business over a wide area for hundreds of years.
The original country markets depended largely on agricultural trade. Drovers would bring their animals up through the main street for sale in the wide expanse of Agincourt Square which, until the development of the Priory Street ‘by-pass’ in the 19th century, gave on to Church Street where there were several butchers’ shops.
By the 1600s, Monmouth was a wealthy town and the seat of the County’s legislature. In 1724, the Shire Hall was built to replace an earlier Elizabethan timber structure and its design accommodated a market for the trading of corn, flour, wool and hops with the assize court located on the first floor.
A weekly provisions market used to be held at the Market Hall in Priory Street, but in 1963 fire so severely damaged the building that the Council moved the market to its present position.
The old Market Hall was subsequently refurbished and now houses the Nelson Museum, with its extensive collection of the admiral’s memorabilia, alongside Central Monmouthshire’s One Stop Shop.
