Berwick Street Market

{{Short description|Street market in the City of Westminster, London, England}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Use British English|date=June 2015}} {{Infobox retail market | retail_market_name=Berwick Street Market | image=Berwick street market 1.jpg | image_width=250px | caption=Berwick Street Market in 2006 | location=[[Berwick Street]], [[Soho, London, England|Soho]] | coordinates={{coord | 51.512921 | -0.134365 | region:GB_type:landmark | display=title, inline}} | address=[[Berwick Street]], [[Soho, London, England|Soho]] | opening_date={{start date and age | 1842 | df=y | p=yes}} | manager=[[City of Westminster]] | owner=[[City of Westminster]] | environment_type=Outdoor | goods_sold=Street food, fruit & veg, household goods, fashion | normal_market_days=Monday to Saturday | website=[https://www.westminster.gov.uk/licensing/markets-and-street-trading/ westminster.gov.uk/licensing/markets-and-street-trading] | number_of_tenants=40 | parking= | map_type=United Kingdom London Westminster | map_relief=no}}

'''Berwick Street Market''' is an outdoor [[Street markets in London|street market]] in the [[Soho, London, England|Soho]] area of the [[City of Westminster]]. It takes place on [[Berwick Street]]. [[Street trading licence|Licences to trade]] are issued by [[Westminster City Council]].

==History==

Before 1867 street trading in London was regarded as a common-law right in London. After being banned for a few weeks in late 1867 street trading was regulated by the police with no licensing or regulation other than the size and spacing of pitches. This light-touch regime continued until the ''London County Council (General Powers) Act 1927'' replaced police regulation with a new [[Street trading licence|licensing]] regime administered by [[Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London|metropolitan borough councils]].<ref name="kelly2019" />

From 1867 until 1927, street trading was regulated by the police with no licensing or regulation other than the size and spacing of pitches.

In 1893 the [[London County Council]]'s Public Control Committee stated that the Market had existed since at least 1842 (though it is not listed in Mayhew<ref name="mayhew1851" />) between Broad Street and Peter Street and that the market included Walker's Court which continues Berwick Street south down to Brewer Street.

At that time there were 32 traders on a Saturday with 20 on weekdays, with the costermongers occupying the west side of the street. Many of the traders had relocated from [[Seven Dials, London|Seven Dials]] during the construction of [[Shaftesbury Avenue]]. The market was then predominately fresh produce for home and commercial kitchens.

The Saturday traders are summarised as:

{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible" |+Perishable goods !Commodity !Number |- |Vegetables |style="text-align:right;|9 |- |Butchers' meat |style="text-align:right;|4 |- |Fruit |style="text-align:right;|1 |- |Flowers |style="text-align:right;|1 |- |Fish |style="text-align:right;|4 |- |Cheesemonger |style="text-align:right;|1 |- |Eggs |style="text-align:right;|1 |- |Catsmeat |style="text-align:right;|2 |} {| class="wikitable mw-collapsible" |+Non-perishable goods !Commodity !Number |- |Earthenware |style="text-align:right;|3 |- |Haberdashery |style="text-align:right;|4 |- |Ironmongery |style="text-align:right;|1 |- |Old books |style="text-align:right;|1 |}

According to the Public Control Committee, [[St Anne Within the Liberty of Westminster|the vestry]] was opposed to registering or licensing the traders.<ref name="Report1893" />

The local vestry was of the opinion that the market should be open to all goods except secondhand clothes as they were concerned about infectious diseases following the [[1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak]].<ref name="bergström1989" />

In the early 1920s [[Virginia Woolf]] often frequented the market and prided herself in her ability to haggle over silk stockings with the market traders who were described at the time as "cosmopolitan—French, Swiss, Italian, Greek and suburban."<ref name="walkowitz2012" />

Mary Benedetta describes the 1936 market as being quiet compared to a post [[World War I|first world war]] peak. The fruiterer Jack Smith still held a regular pitch where he would remind customers and of his claim that in 1880 he was the first person in England to retail tomatoes and in 1890 the first to retail grapefruit.<ref name="benedetta1936" /><ref name="bergström1989" /><ref name="harriss1996" />

Between the wars the market became renowned for chintzes, satins, furs, and fine silk stockings servicing the theatres and caberets of the [[West End theatre|West End]]. Despite this change in emphasis, fresh food remained a presence on the market. It was during the [[interwar period]] that Berwick Street became one of the first street markets in London to have an electricity supply for traders to illuminate their stalls.<ref name="bergström1989" />

Following the second world war an explosion of [[Department store|department stores]] along [[Oxford Street]] poached the millinery trade away from the market and returned to its late nineteenth century focus of fresh food.<ref name="bergström1989" />

By the mid-nineties the market consisted of over eighty stalls until in 1995 Westminster Council restricted the market to the east side of the street only gradually reducing the number of pitches to 41 through closing the market to new traders.<ref name="harriss1996" />

In the middle of the 2010s Westminster City Council considered turning the market over to a private operator but abandoned the plans following a campaign by local residents and traders and a petition signed by 37,000 people including [[Joanna Lumley]] and [[Stephen Fry]].<ref name="rustin2016" /><ref name="prynn2017" />

== Transport ==

=== Bus ===

=== Railway and tube ===

The nearest stations are [[Tottenham Court Road tube station|Tottenham Court Road]] {{rint|london|central}}{{rint|london|northern}}, [[Oxford Circus tube station|Oxford Circus]] {{rint|london|bakerloo}}{{rint|london|central}}{{rint|london|victoria}}, and [[Piccadilly Circus tube station|Piccadilly Circus]] {{rint|london|bakerloo}}{{rint|london|piccadilly}}.

== References == <references> <ref name="kelly2019"> {{cite book | last = Kelley | first = Victoria | date = 2019 | title = Cheap Street: London's Street Markets and the Cultures of Informality, c. 1850–1939 | location = Manchester | publisher = Manchester University Press | page = 39 }} </ref> <ref name="mayhew1851">{{cite book | last = Mayhew | first = Henry | url = https://archive.org/details/cu31924092592751/ | title = London Labour and the London Poor; a cyclopædia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work | publisher = G. Woodfall and Son | year = 1851 | volume = I | location = London | author-link = Henry Mayhew | access-date = 10 July 2020 | pages = 11}}</ref> <ref name = "Report1893">{{cite report | title = London Markets, Special Report of the Public Control Committee Relative to Existing Markets and Market Rights and as to the Expediency of Establishing New Markets in or Near the Administrative County of London | author = Public Control Committee | publisher = London County Council | location = London | pages = 43–44 | year = 1893 | chapter = Appendix B}}</ref> <ref name="bergström1989">{{cite book | last1 = Bergström | first1 = Theo | title = The Markets of London | last2 = Forshaw | first2 = Alec | publisher = Penguin | year = 1989 | edition = Revised | location = London | pages = 38–40 | name-list-style = amp}}</ref> <ref name="benedetta1936">{{cite book | last1 = Benedetta | first1 = Mary | last2 = Moholy-Nagy | first2 = László | author-link2 = László Moholy-Nagy | name-list-style = amp | url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.72717 | title = The Street Markets of London | publisher = London John Miles | year = 1936 | location = London | access-date = 12 July 2020 | pages = 53–59}}</ref>

<ref name="harriss1996">{{cite book | last = Harriss | first = Phil | year = 1996 | title = London Markets | language = en | edition = 1st | location = London | publisher = Cadogan Books | isbn = 1-86011-040-1 | pages = 22–26 }}</ref>

<ref name="rustin2016">{{cite news | last = Rustin | first = Susanna | date = 2016-07-25 | title = Soho's last stand? Inside the battle to keep Berwick Street market independent | url = https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/25/saving-soho-battle-keep-berwick-street-market-independent | url-status = live | work = [[The Guardian]] | location = [[London]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240603100053/https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/25/saving-soho-battle-keep-berwick-street-market-independent | archive-date = 2024-06-03 | access-date = 2024-10-07 }}</ref> <ref name="prynn2017">{{cite news | last = Prynn | first = Jon | date = 2017-03-22 | title = Victory for Soho's Berwick Street market traders as Westminster council scraps 'privatisation' plans | url = https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/victory-for-sohos-berwick-street-market-traders-as-westminster-council-scraps-privatisation-plans-a3495941.html | url-status = live | work = [[The Evening Standard]] | location = [[London]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230106071015/https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/victory-for-soho-s-berwick-street-market-traders-as-westminster-council-scraps-privatisation-plans-a3495941.html | archive-date = 2023-01-06 | access-date = 2024-10-07 }}</ref> <ref name="walkowitz2012">{{cite web | url = https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2012/04/19/virginia-woolfs-soho-extract-from-nights-out-by-judith-walkowitz/ | title = Virginia Woolf's Soho: Extract From 'Nights Out' by Judith Walkowitz | last = Walkowitz | first = Judith | date = 2012-04-19 | website = Yale University Press London Blog | publisher = Yale University Press London | location = London | language = en | access-date = 2024-10-20 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240224092736/https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2012/04/19/virginia-woolfs-soho-extract-from-nights-out-by-judith-walkowitz/ | archive-date = 2024-02-24 }}</ref> </references>

== External links == * [https://www.westminster.gov.uk/licensing/markets-and-street-trading/]—The City of Westminster's markets webpages * [https://www.nmtf.co.uk/market-near-me/berwick-street-market LBerwick Street Market—National Market Traders Federation]

[[Category:Tourist attractions in the City of Westminster]] [[Category:Retail markets in London]] [[Category:19th-century establishments in England]]