Market Day
2026
IT ALL STARTS WITH A CHARTER
When you visit a market town in England, do you consider the origins of the market?
The monarch could grant trading rights to a town, or borough, through a market charter allowing a weekly market or fair. The purpose was to regulate trade, though gaining a market charter often brought prosperity to a place through prestige and economic importance.
From 1199 to 1516 royal grants, recorded on charter rolls, gave the details of the name of who the charter was granted to, the day of the week the market was to take place and where the market was to be held; if the day of the market was to be changed then a royal licence was required.
The Gazetteer of markets and fairs in England and Wales to 1516 lists the markets alphabetically by town within a county; a description of each market is given with the economic wealth.
The largest town in Yorkshire is Leeds and 2026 marks the 400th anniversary of the Leeds Charter. Before 1600 Leeds was a rural village which grew into a centre for the cloth trade; however, due to decline in sales and some unscrupulous traders the reputation was starting to become damaged. To overcome this a group of wealthier merchants negotiated to acquire a Royal Charter which was granted on 3rd July 1626 by King Charles I.
The charter changed Leeds through the creation of a borough, which included villages such as Armley, Beeston, Bramley, Chapel Allerton, Farnley, Headingley, Holbeck and Hunslet.
Historically, the market in Leeds was held in Briggate, the main thoroughfare from the river. As the market became busier, the woollen cloth merchants moved their markets to Cloth Halls in the early 1700s.
It wasn’t until 1822 that the general Kirkgate Market opened, in 1857 the market was covered creating one of the biggest indoor markets in Europe.
It is remarkable that today we have documentation of the 400 year old market charter for Leeds. The original charter was known to be lost during the Civil War in the 1600s but a copy was made. The copy remained unknown until the 1950s when a bookshop owner, in Canterbury, discovered a piece of vellum, written in Latin, behind some bookshelves. He was planning to have it made into a lampshade when he fortunately consulted a specialist who was able to verify the document as the only surviving copy of the Leeds charter.
The document may have been destined to light up a room but it now lights up the history of Leeds 400 years later.
The copy of the Royal Charter for Leeds is held by the West Yorkshire Archives Service.
For further information about the history of markets and market towns see: Farmers, markets and trade in England 1200–1900, Wendy Thwaites; The Local Historian, Journal of the British Association for Local History, LOCAL, May 2007, Volume 37 No 2, pgs. 76-98 www.balh.org.uk
IMAGE - Thomas Rowlandson, Market Day at Richmond in Yorkshire, c. 1818, NGA 69407.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/
Markets and fairs - The National Archives
Centre for Metropolitan History Institute of Historical Research
The Leeds Charter of Incorporation 1626: What’s it all about? | Catablogue
How Leeds Royal Charter was saved from becoming lampshade - BBC News