Market House, Tetbury

The Market House stands in the Market Place at the heart of Tetbury, a timber-framed hall raised on three rows of stone columns so the market can trade beneath it. It was built in 1655 by the Tetbury Feoffees, who still own it, and it is listed Grade I; Visit Tetbury calls it one of the best surviving pillared market houses in England.

History

The market had moved south from its first site in the Chipping, where the old tolsey, or market hall, still stood in 1594; by then the new market place already held the White Hart, the chief inn of the town. The Market House went up there in 1655 and was later, as the Victoria County History puts it, the focus of town life.

The Tetbury Feoffees

Its builders and owners are the Tetbury Feoffees, a body founded in 1633 by four townspeople. Over the centuries the building served as the town's office, a place to sell wool, a store for the hand-pumped fire engine and the town lock-up, until the police station was built on Long Street in 1883 to 1884. It was altered in 1740, and in 1817 the Feoffees spent more than £1,000 restoring it, taking off an upper storey and filling in the south bay to house the fire engine.

What to look for

Stand back in the Market Place first, then walk underneath. The listing points out:

• The arcades of plain Tuscan stone columns, seven bays long and two deep, with the timber-framed hall above under a hipped roof of Cotswold stone slates
• The north end, faced in dressed stone, with two big round arches with chamfered stones
• The clock in the west gable, and above it the copper-roofed cupola with its bell and a weathervane of dolphins; Visit Tetbury points out more dolphins round the building
• The south bay, filled in in 1817 for the fire engine, with its first-floor double door at the top of ten stone steps and a second clock face in the gable
• The seven three-light lattice windows of the hall, under wooden hoods

Inside the upper room, a central row of big wooden columns on carved bases carries the roof, with Ionic capitals and carved braces.

Visiting

The arcade beneath the Market House is open at all times and free. Markets are held underneath each week (Tetbury Town Council lists two weekly markets in the town: Wednesday for plants and produce such as vegetables, pies and fish, and Saturday for plants, vegetables, bric-a-brac, old books and jewellery), and the upper room is used for craft fairs, exhibitions, sales and private functions, so it is open when an event is on. A market morning is the best time to see it in use; early on a quiet weekday is the best time to photograph it. The Woolsack Races, run up and down Gumstool Hill on the spring bank holiday Monday, are a short walk away.

Getting there

The Market House is in the Market Place, where Long Street meets Church Street. Buses link Tetbury with Cirencester, Kemble station, Stroud and Bath on weekdays and Saturdays. Tetbury's car parks include the free Old Railyard car park by the Goods Shed, where the Tetbury town walk starts,, and the Chipping car park off Chipping Street, which charges Monday to Saturday and is free on Sundays. Public toilets are in the West Street car park. The Tetbury town walk passes it on its loop of the old town.

Nearby

The Snooty Fox faces the Market House across the Market Place, and the Close Hotel, the Gilbertine Kitchen, the Priory Inn and the Royal Oak are all a few minutes' walk. Hobbs House Bakery, the family bakery, has a shop on Church Street. St Mary's Church is just down Church Street, and on Long Street the old police station and court took over the job of the lock-up. Stroud's Old Town Hall and the Market House at Minchinhampton are its cousins in the south Cotswolds.