History
Burslem's first market, The Shambles, was built in 1760-61. The present market hall was built in 1897 and is sandwiched between Queens Street and Market Place.
Built on two levels, the ground floor is an open space under an over-spanned cast-iron and glass roof. From what I can find online there used to be an upper floor gallery too but none of that exists now. The majority of the building is suffering water damage and severe pigeon infestation.
The market closed its doors for the final time in 2003 after masonry dropped from the ceiling, making it unsafe for shoppers. It is now in need of vital repairs. The market’s impressive iron and glass roof is now in danger of collapse, and the repair bill is expected to be close to £1,000,000 although I suspect this is going to be a hell of a lot more. The market is owned by the council which by all accounts is a bad thing in Stoke as the majority of buildings get left behind in favour of building new hotels, multi-storey car parks or building silver tree's with no relevance or history to the area.
As @raisinwing mentioned in his report, unfortunately some of the local pro umbex lot have already splashed this all over facebook so no doubt this will start cropping up alot more in varying states.
Couple of old pictures from the internet of when the market was open to trade
I also managed to find a couple of pictures post closure but pre-clearout
And now onto 2022...
Burslem's first market, The Shambles, was built in 1760-61. The present market hall was built in 1897 and is sandwiched between Queens Street and Market Place.
Built on two levels, the ground floor is an open space under an over-spanned cast-iron and glass roof. From what I can find online there used to be an upper floor gallery too but none of that exists now. The majority of the building is suffering water damage and severe pigeon infestation.
The market closed its doors for the final time in 2003 after masonry dropped from the ceiling, making it unsafe for shoppers. It is now in need of vital repairs. The market’s impressive iron and glass roof is now in danger of collapse, and the repair bill is expected to be close to £1,000,000 although I suspect this is going to be a hell of a lot more. The market is owned by the council which by all accounts is a bad thing in Stoke as the majority of buildings get left behind in favour of building new hotels, multi-storey car parks or building silver tree's with no relevance or history to the area.
As @raisinwing mentioned in his report, unfortunately some of the local pro umbex lot have already splashed this all over facebook so no doubt this will start cropping up alot more in varying states.
Couple of old pictures from the internet of when the market was open to trade
I also managed to find a couple of pictures post closure but pre-clearout
And now onto 2022...
I do hope that these windows are saved or preserved, seemingly original from when the market was first opened.
