Now that the Government has awarded nearly £1.5 million for ‘modernisation and improvements’ to Bideford Pannier Market, we are all looking forward to seeing what the plans are. The Town Council, who will be responsible for managing the project, has said that it will be ‘a community hub’, with ‘updated facilities’, offering ‘modern workspaces, high quality events and a vibrant artisan quarter’. 

Looking back on the speeches made at the building’s grand opening in 1884, I wonder if we can take any inspiration from the sentiments expressed. There seems to have been universal agreement that the new building represented a huge improvement on the earlier market which was ‘cold and draughty’. The mayor declared that ‘many persons in the habit of sitting in it’ had ‘lost their lives’ – and others ‘shortened their days’. 

The Town Corporation had had to purchase the manorial rights to the market from the Lords of the Manor, who had declined to improve the facility. This meant putting ‘a penny or two’ on the rates to pay for it. 

At a public dinner provided by the New Inn to celebrate the opening, former MP Sir George Stucley gave a speech about the importance of the building to the prosperity and development of the town. He stressed the ‘mutual dependency’ of town and country, saying that ‘it was essential to the prosperity of the town that those who lived in the country should prosper also’ – a message that surely has resonance for today. 

The new Pannier Market was seen as part of a series of improvements to the town made as a consequence of the ‘enlightened views’ of some of its inhabitants: including the water works in 1870 and public drainage in 1871. Stucley was concerned that ‘if the town was not well governed, and the comfort of its inhabitants not considered, and their health and economy not looked after’, the place would ‘fail to attract strangers’. It’s not a formulation we would not use today in encouraging the visitor economy, but we can certainly share the sentiment. 

On the day of the building’s inauguration, there was a public procession, the bells of St Mary’s church rang out and cannons were fired over the water. The town was crowded with ‘country visitors’. Bideford was seen to be expanding and flourishing. I wonder if we can capture some of the same spirit when the new improved Pannier Market is inaugurated?