The Marketplace

In November 1220 a Wednesday market was provisionally licensed to the abbot of St Osyths for his new village called Brentwood. This market was confirmed by Henry III in 1227 and seems to have occured on every Wednesday. In 1252 for unclear reasons the market was changed from Wednesdays to Thursdays.

The market may have been used regularly for selling corn by the 15th century, as a deed of 12th April 1470 refers to a building in Brentwood as being next to the "Corn Market". This probably does not mean the whole market at Brentwood was for corn, but it is more likely that a certain area of the market was dedicated to corn and therefore that area was called The Corn Market.

The marketplace was a wide area between Hart Street and the High Street, although it has now been completely built over by the buildings between the two streets. This was happening as early as the 16th century, when meat was being sold from the "flesh shambles" built on the High Street side of the marketplace. There was also already a cage in the market place by this point, where criminals could locked up. In 1590 it was complained that "there is no common and market measure belonging to the market of Brentwood, whereby the Queen's people buying and selling in the same market are greatly deceived", presumabily this was remedied - although there is no record of it.

Richard Blome, writing in 1673, tells us that the market was still occuring on Thursdays. However, in A New Survey of England, printed in 1728, the market is described as being on Wednesdays. The London Magazine in 1748 reports it as being back on Thursdays, but by 1779 it was as being on Saturdays.

Depending on which early 19th century guidebooks you read, the market may have ceased by 1804, or may have continued regularly until the 1830s. It is more likely that later books saying the market was still going were just re-printing old text that had been written decades before, and later newspaper articles confirm the market was no longer functioning by the first years of the 1800s.

In the early 1840s a committee was created to re-start the Brentwood Market, which had been extinct for about 50 years. After much planning the market was opened in the old market stalls on 16th November 1843. Regrettably the market was not a success and did not become a regular occurance again.Some permenant market stalls were still standing in about 1880, when the rear of the King's Head was photographed, but they were demolished shortly afterwards.