1817) was the means of concentrating the markets for horses, pigs,
cattle, sheep, and farm produce, which for years previously had been
offered for sale in New Street, Ann Street, High Street, and Dale End.
The Market tolls, for which £12,500 was paid in 1812, produced £5,706
10s. 5d. in the year 1840.

_Cattle Market_.--Prior to 1769 cattle were sold in High Street; in that
year their standings were removed to Dale End, and in 1776 (Oct. 28.) to
Deritend. Pigs and sheep were sold in New Street up to the opening of
Smithfield. Some five-and-twenty years back a movement was set on foot
for the removal of the Cattle Market to the Old Vauxhall neighbourhood,
but the cost frightened the people, and the project was shelved. The
"town improvers" of to-day, who play with thousands of pounds as
children used to do at chuck-farthing, are not so easily baulked, and
the taxpayers will doubtless soon have to find the cash for a very much
larger Cattle Market in some other part of the borough. A site has been
fixed upon in Rupert Street by the "lords in Convention," but up to now
(March, 1885), the question is not _quite_ settled.

_Corn Market_.--The ancient market for corn, or "Corn Cheaping," formed,
part of "le Bul ryng" which at one time was almost the sole place of
traffic of our forefathers. At first an open space, as the market
granted by the early Norman Kings grew in extent, the custom arose of
setting up stalls, the right to do which was doubtless bought of the
Lords of the Manor. These grew into permanent tenements, and stallages,
"freeboards," shambles, and even houses (some with small gardens
abutting on the unfenced churchyard), gradually covered the whole
ground, and it ultimately cost the town a large sum to clear it, the
Commissioners, in 1806-7, paying nearly £25,000 for the purpose. The
farmers of a hundred years ago used to assemble with their samples of