Market Place, Prescot – Statement of Significance Owen Barton, Townscape Heritage Initiative Officer, April 2017
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Market Place, Prescot – Statement of Significance Owen Barton, Townscape Heritage Initiative Officer, April 2017 Prescot Market Place - Statement of Significance This document attempts to summarise the historical development and changes at Market Place based on the information at hand in the time available. It is by no means exhaustive and is not intended to provide an authoritative or complete history. It is impossible to discuss the town’s market without also discussing the history of the wider town, its Parish and its links to both Knowsley Hall and King’s College Cambridge. This exploration of the significance of Market Place therefore provides an overview of the wider town where there are clear associations with Market Place. Prescot Origins and Early History The site of Prescot could well have been an Iron Age settlement – Iron Age people were settled all over the country, but locations where there are wide open views to long distance horizons and large expanses of night sky were seemingly of social or spiritual importance to Iron Age communities given that the location, design and orientation of the monuments they have left behind overwhelmingly appear to have been influenced by the relative positions of the sun, moon and stars. From the high ground by the Parish Church on Market Place it is possible to see on a clear day across the Mersey and Dee estuaries to the hills of northern Wales, and across the Cheshire Plain to Jodrell Bank, and hence a large expanse of sky. Such Iron Age centres often became the location for Christian centres and Prescot is certainly a Pre-Conquest settlement. Indeed the town’s Anglo-Saxon place name ‘Prestecota’ means ‘dwelling of the priest(s)’ which implies a community already occupied the hilltop that is the core of the present-day town by the time of the Saxon settlement of the northwest. The circular plan of the churchyard (which survived more or less until the late nineteenth century) could potentially indicate Christian worship supplanting a circular Iron Age enclosure or monument on the land that now forms the churchyard. In any event there appears to have been a long-established settlement in Prescot with a place of worship as its focal point prior to the Norman Conquest. The older font within the church today is believed to be Anglo-Saxon. When the system of parishes was established in England over the ninth and tenth centuries, the church at Prescot became the place of worship for a large parish covering some 58 square miles containing 15 townships as far north as Rainford and as far south as Great Sankey and Widnes on the north bank of the Mersey. The Parish Church itself though was very close to the western edge of the Parish (Knowsley, Huyton and Tarbock were all within Huyton Parish). The Parish was one of the largest and wealthiest in Lancashire. Despite this there is no mention of Prescot in the Domesday Book, but the Domesday records for Lancashire in general are very patchy in places, with the area treated as little more than short notes following on from the records for Cheshire. Page 1 of 14 Market Place, Prescot – Statement of Significance Owen Barton, Townscape Heritage Initiative Officer, April 2017 Prescot is within a large area between Huyton/Tarbock and Winwick / Warrington and the north bank of the Mersey to Skelmersdale where nothing is recorded in the Domesday survey. Wigan, a town of historically similar stature to Prescot, is in the centre of a similarly-sized area of land where there are no entries in the Domesday Book. The lack of mention of Prescot in the Domesday Book must therefore be treated with caution. The earliest mention of Prescot itself is in the Pipe Rolls of 1178, though curiously there appears to have been another hamlet very close to Prescot called Churchley. This Anglo-Saxon name which means ‘meadow by the church’ can only reasonably imply the church at Prescot is an indicator of there being a place of worship in Prescot long before the Norman Conquest. The woods at ‘Churchlegh’ were granted to the Rector of Prescot Parish Church in 1387, and not long after all references to Churchley cease, with the settlement presumably becoming part and parcel of Prescot town. The survival of a field name ‘Churchley Field’ well into the nineteenth century suggests Churchley was at the eastern end of Eccleston Street. The establishment of a market in Prescot With the Church drawing a congregation of people from as far as ten miles away, Prescot became the natural or default place for traders, vendors, hawkers to sell. This sort of informal trading outside churches was an occurrence at parish churches across the country. A charter for a market was granted in 1333 to William de Dacre, Rector and Lord of Prescot Manor, but this would have simply formalised and regulated a long-standing practice, and, importantly, allowed de Dacre to levy charges on the traders within the market. The charter allowed for a weekly market on Mondays and an annual fair of three days at Corpus Christi. Fairs in a historical sense were greatly expanded versions of the regular market featuring goods that were not otherwise available locally the rest of the year, or were unobtainable by people with limited ability or opportunity to travel to larger towns and cities (or other fairs). As a result the fair would have been a key event in the town’s calendar, drawing people from across the parish and beyond. With all of the people attending the fair and staying in the town for a day or more, entertainment, food and drink and amusements were also provided. While the nation’s shopping habits and mobility have changed over time, the existence of travelling fairs (with the emphasis on entertainment, gambling and amusement rather than shopping) are a living remnant of the fairs that took place in towns all over the country. As with many medieval markets in English towns, the location of the market was very close to the church, in this case below the church within the broad triangular junction formed by the modern day Sewell Street, Kemble Street, Eccleston Street and Church Street. The market would have been indicated by its own stone or wooden cross, and would have consisted of stalls and tents that were erected and dismantled Page 2 of 14 Market Place, Prescot – Statement of Significance Owen Barton, Townscape Heritage Initiative Officer, April 2017 each market day. Within Market Place, close to the cross, were a well, and the town’s stocks which added humiliation to the punishment of being locked up. The market at Prescot must have been a success, for in 1355 the Rector of Wigan petitioned the King to close the market at Prescot because it was impacting his own market at Wigan, some twelve miles away. Prescot’s stature in the medieval period is also reflected by its inclusion in the ‘Gough’ map of circa 1350, the oldest surviving map of Britain, along with Liverpool, Ormskirk, Warrington and Wigan as the only other settlements in this corner of Lancashire that were included on the map. Kings College, Prescot’s unique governance and new market days In 1391 Prescot Manor was sold to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and third surviving son of King Edward III. When John of Gaunt died the Manor passed to his son Henry who was later crowned King Henry IV. In 1445 Henry VI, grandson of Henry IV, established the University College of Saint Mary and Saint Nicholas, Cambridge (later known as Kings College). Among the gifts he gave to the newly-founded college was the Manor and Rectory of Prescot. The College would therefore be supported by the rents and rates due to the Rector and Lord of the Manor of this prosperous parish. With the College being so far away from Prescot, Lord Derby, his Steward and four local men (known as ‘the Four Men’) governed the affairs of the town. This arrangement was unique in England. Rather than have control exercised by a member of the gentry as in most manors with control inherited rather than earned, in Prescot most of the governance was carried out by the ‘Four Men’ who were deemed worthy of the role, overseen by the Steward of Lord Derby’s estate who was in turn overseen by Lord Derby. This meant the town’s affairs could be and were run in a manner that favoured business and prosperity. This form of governance could presumably react more quickly to changes in circumstance or events that transpired than a lord of the manor who was socially and economically (and more often than not, geographically) removed from the people who lived and worked within the manor. While not perfect, as the Four Men were effectively an oligarchy, this arrangement was far more democratic than elsewhere in the country at the time – Prescot men were unique in that they had the opportunity to govern their town as well as buy and sell land and buildings among other rights that were unique to Prescot. Owners of land or property in Prescot also benefited from the peculiarities of Prescot’s governance: they were exempt from jury service outside of town, exempt from tolls at Prescot and any other markets, were exempt from inheritance tax and had the right to obtain minerals from their land (i.e. to dig for coal, quarry for stone etc). There were far more freedoms within Prescot township than elsewhere in the Page 3 of 14 Market Place, Prescot – Statement of Significance Owen Barton, Townscape Heritage Initiative Officer, April 2017 country, and this can only have encouraged more trade and industry in the town itself.