Tales of London

In 2014 Borough Market celebrated what it claimed was its one-thousandth birthday. It’s more than feasible that a market has been held in the area for over a millennium, but if Borough Market does indeed have a birth certificate dated 1014 then it’s keeping it very well hidden. The first recorded reference doesn’t appear until two and a half centuries later in 1276, and even then it was for all the wrong reasons. 

'Borough' is an alternative name for Southwark – it being the borough outside the City of London, on the south side of London Bridge. This location put Borough Market in an economically advantageous position, being the southern entrance to the capital, and it originally sold grain, fruit, veg, fish and livestock. But the traders in Southwark were undercutting the merchants in the City on the northern side of the Thames, and they had also taken to placing their stalls along London Bridge itself, throttling the flow of traffic along what at the time was the only entrance into London from the south. So in 1276 the City banned all of its citizens from buying “corn, cattle or other merchandise” in Southwark, and the Borough traders were barred from setting up shop on the bridge.

The market was relocated to the south of St Margaret’s Church, which stood on what is now the traffic island with the war memorial on Borough High Street. But the City continued to press for control of the market, and after centuries of lobbying Edward VI granted a Royal Charter in 1550 granting them ownership of all the markets in Southwark; in 1671 Charles II issued a further edict defining the boundaries of the market along the High Street.

By the mid-eighteenth century though the City was facing the same problems it had done five-hundred years earlier: Borough High Street was still the only major thoroughfare into London from the south, and despite numerous attempts to control the chaos of the market, the stallholders and the livestock were creating havoc along the length of Borough High Street. Once again the City lobbied the national authorities, and in 1756 an Act of Parliament was passed to close down the market.

Except that wasn’t the end of the story, because a second Act was also passed that year. This granted the parishioners of St Saviour’s the right to purchase land for a new market, away from the High Street, that would “be and remain an estate for the use and benefit of the said parish for ever”. Funds were raised to buy a plot on the western side of Borough High Street, known as The Triangle, which is where the market has remained ever since. As was stipulated in the 1756 Act of Parliament, the market remains a charitable trust to this day.

By the nineteenth century Borough Market had become solely used for the wholesale of fruit and veg, and the current market buildings were built in the 1850s. The construction of London Bridge Station led to a railway viaduct splitting the market in half in 1862, but the trains brought with them more business and helped the market to grow in importance. As Southwark expanded, so too did Borough Market, with additional plots of land being purchased for ever more stalls. Its proximity to the Thames, its ports being the unloading point for exotic foodstuffs from across the Empire, meant that Borough Market continued to thrive. By the 1930s it boasted four-hundred trading stalls, and Charlie Chaplin - who had grown up near Southwark - sponsored the market's annual sports day, which included a Chaplin lookalike contest.

But the boom times were not to last. The construction of the immense New Covent Garden Market in Vauxhall in the 1970s, coupled with the rise in popularity of supermarkets, killed the trade at the once-dominant Borough Market. By the 1990s it was a shadow of its former self. In what was seen at the time as a last gasp attempt at reviving the market, one-off retail events for the public were held in the middle of the decade. Despite reservations from the market’s trustees, these events proved incredibly popular, and in 1998 food writer Henrietta Green organised a three-day Food Lovers’ Fair. Retail events were held one day a month, then every week, and these days the market is open six days a week – enabling self-confessed ‘foodies’ (although anybody using that term to describe themselves ought to be horse whipped, right after the ‘influencers’) to shop for artisanal cheeses and Italian meats from Tuesday through to Sunday. Today there are one-hundred market stalls, covering four and a half acres.

The retail element of Borough Market may have come to dominate the popular imagination in recent years, but there is still a vibrant wholesale community at the market. Trading for these businesses usually starts at around 2am and is finished by eight in the morning; but there is respite for the night workers at Borough, who can enjoy a pint at the Market Porter pub when it opens its doors to the traders at 6am.

For more stories about the fascinating history of London, have a look at my other articles, or scroll down and fill in the form below to subscribe to weekly updates!