Early 1800s

This is the Guildhall in High Street dating from the 1850s. In front stands the statue of John, 2nd Marquess of Bute which is now to be found at the southern end of St Mary Street. Between 1810 and 1820 the weekly open market was held every Saturday on High Street. For butchers’ meat, vegetables, earthenware and casual commodities, the space allotted was from the Town Hall to the Castle.

The greater portion of butchers’ meat was bought from the country. Meat at this time was sold by hand, each joint bargained for between butcher and buyer. During the great fairs, High Street was used for saleable articles; in the market space, under the Hall, the tables were used for cloth and flannel weavers.

Essential though the markets and fairs were to the life and prosperity of Cardiff, the inconvenience of having a town hall and market house in the middle of one of the main streets was increasingly felt. Market activities would regualrly spill out on to High Street and St Mary Street. The Cardiff Street Commissioners, made the first modest attempt to improve matters by obliging the stallholders to clear the pavement of obstruction so that Sunday churchgoers would not be inconvenienced. A proposal to demolish the town hall and rebuild it elsewhere was made as early as 1797, by which date High Street and St Mary Street were becoming more important as thoroughfares.

The first practical steps were left to William Vachell who in 1822 erected a covered market on a plot which he owned in High Street. Vachell operated his market with great success, the Corporation had approved his venture while insisting on their right to collect tolls due to them under the borough charters. The market was later discontinued with the opening of the corporation’s own covered market in 1835.

The erection of a covered market for the sale of meat and fresh food was clearly a great improvement, facilitating the movement of traffic through the town on market days. It also meant that fresh produce was on sale throughout the week and not just on Saturday. But cattle and other livestock were still tethered and penned in the streets, obstructing traffic and fouling the carriageway. In 1829 the corporation purchased a site at the back of Quay Street for a pig market.

By the 1820s it was clear that Cardiff needed a modern covered market to replace the old guildhall in High Street. In 1835, the Burgesses decided to build a new market. The market was designed by Edward Haycock, and comprised of a large iron framed shed. The main entrance was on St Mary Street where part of the frontage continued to be occupied by a pair of cottages and the lock up, of which the latter was superseded by a borough police station in 1855. There was a second entrance to the market from Church Street through the Old Arcade, which survives today as a way into the present market.