The Shambles in Settle Marketplace, its Date and Builder

Abstract

The Shambles in Settle marketplace is a familiar, perhaps even iconic building, but long familiarity does not diminish its oddness. It takes the form of a row of six shops with cottages above and basements underneath, fronted by a dual row of six arches which support galleried access to the cottages. An upper floor was added to the building in 1888–9; illustrations of the building in its earlier form are provided. Various suggestions have circulated about the age of the building. This article shows that it was built within a few years of 1780 and that its builder was a mason and bridge builder, Robert Charnley (d. 1789), whose later work was in Lancashire. It suggests that the Shambles should be seen as a demonstration of the bridge builder’s skill with arches.

Keywords:

• Settle
• markets
• shops
• market architecture
• bridge-building

Notes

1 Thomas Brayshaw and Ralph M. Robinson, A History of the Ancient Parish of Giggleswick (London, 1932), p. 141.

2 C. Harrington, ‘Historic Buildings: the Folly and others’, in Settle and District Civic Society, Settle, an appreciation (1973), unpag.

3 Peter Leach and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire West Riding, Leeds, Bradford and the North (London, 2009), p. 693.

4 Figures 1 to 4 are taken from Thomas Brayshaw’s grangerised copy of G. H. Brown, On Foot Round Settle (Settle, 1896) in four volumes in the Brayshaw Library of Giggleswick School and are reproduced here with the permission of the Governors of Giggleswick School.

5 T. H. Foxcroft, ‘The Settle Market Buildings Co. Ltd’, North Craven Heritage Trust Journal (1997), 21 (which may be found more conveniently at http://www.northcravenheritage.org.uk/nchtjournal/Journals/1997/J97A9.html). Giggleswick School, Brayshaw Library, Brayshaw’s grangerised copy of Brown, On Foot Round Settle, I, p. 32, includes two press cuttings dated only to 1887, the first reporting that Brayshaw had procured the Shambles at auction for £1,210, the second that ownership had been transferred to the Settle Market Buildings Company Ltd established with a capital of £3,500. ‘It is proposed to set aside the lower portion of the building for butcher’s shops, etc, for which purpose it has been used from time immemorial, but the cottages above will give place to a public hall suitable a like for market purposes and public meetings’, an intention which was not fulfilled.

6 Penrith Farmers and Kidd’s PLC, sale 14 Aug. 2013, lot 725 (illustrated on their website).

7 Reproduced in Brayshaw and Robinson, Giggleswick, opp. p. 174.

8 Brayshaw and Robinson, Giggleswick, p. 181.

9 R. W. Hoyle, ‘New Markets and Fairs in the Yorkshire Dales, 1550–1750’, in Landscape History after Hoskins, III, Post-Medieval Landscapes, ed. P. S. Barnwell and M. Palmer (2007), pp. 93–106.

10 I intend to discuss this episode in a forthcoming paper.

11 Most conveniently found in Audrey M. Hill, trans., Settle in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century (North Yorkshire RO publications, 14, 1977), p. 9.

12 Foxcroft, ‘Settle Market Buildings Co.’, refers to this rent charge still being paid by the Settle Market Buildings Company.

13 PP (1825), Reports of the Charity Commissioners, Vol. 13 (XI), pp. 653–4.

14 Borthwick Institute, Prob. Reg. 60, fo. 203–4.

15 I have used extracts from the WRRD made by Shane O’Brien and Dr Anthony D. Stephens on behalf of the North Craven Historical Research Group with the assistance of the Wakefield office of the WYRO, and made available to me through the kindness of Mike Slater.

16 WRRD, BY 654/939.

17 WRRD, CK 384/536, CP 193/297.

18 The 1798 Land Tax return says that the property was then in the ownership of [blank] Charnley and it called the property ‘The Shambles’, the earliest occasion on which I have seen this name used: TNA, LR23/107 fo. 256v.

19 Stainforth History Group, Stainforth. Stepping stones through History (Stainforth, 2001), pp. 28–9.

20 Lancashire RO, QSP/2063/11; 2963/13; 2017/8; 2051/13; 2063/9.

21 Andrew White, ‘Stonemasons in a Georgian Town’, Local Historian, 21 (1991), 64. I am grateful to Jennifer S. Holt for making contract with Dr White for me, and to Dr White for this most useful reference.