The Market Hall

Details

TIVERTON

SS9512 FORE STREET, Tiverton
848-1/6/101 (North side)
12/02/52 The Market Hall
(Formerly Listed as:
MARKET
Market Hall, and range of low
booths, west)

GV II

Market hall, still in use as vegetable and flea market.
1830-1831; renovations and alterations of 1876 (Snell).
Architect unknown to date. Timber and cast-iron; natural slate
roof; painted stretcher bond brick infill.
PLAN: long, rectangular 21-bay market hall, originally open on
both long sides with a central, 2-storey square tower with
upper room. The sides of the hall have been infilled, probably
in 1876. The market hall, assigned to butchers, poultry and
gardeners stood adjacent to the cattle market to the north
(now a car park) and one range of covered booths (separately
listed) survives on the west side.
EXTERIOR: single storey with 2-storey tower in centre. The
hall has solid end walls with coped gables with kneelers. A
continuous glazed lantern along the ridge stops against the
tower. The tower is roughcast with a hipped roof with lead
rolls and an octagonal cupola of tapering timber columns
supporting an octagonal louvred bellcote with round-headed
openings and an ogee lead roof with weathervane. The tower has
segmental-headed first floor timber windows. The west side
window is glazed as a tripartite sash of 9 over 6 panes with
fixed flanking lights, the east side window is a 4-light
casement with glazing bars. Clock faces to north and south are
fixed to solid panels which are roofed across to the tower.
The clock faces are dated 1830 and by Tucker of Tiverton.
The long walls of the hall are stretcher bond brick with
continuous glazing above with timber louvres above the
glazing.
The original 1830-31 cast-iron columns are buried in the
walls. They are very slender with engaged shafts and pretty
moulded capitals and bases, similar to the surviving columns
of the detached market booths to the W.
The south end wall is blind with a C20 window. The main
entrance is on the north end which has a segmental-headed
arched doorway with chamfered brick imposts, doorway now
converted to a window. To left of centre a wide moulded
cornice survives with a door flanked by windows below. To
right of centre there is a doorway and one window.
There are additional entrances on the long sides in the
centre, against the tower. These are segmental-headed with
gables treated as pediments with timber moulding; 2-leaf doors
and segmental-headed fanlights with vertical glazing bars. The
tower retains segmental-headed ground-floor windows (now
internal) glazed with small-pane timber casements.
INTERIOR: on either side of the tower the hall has two rows of
axial timber posts. The roof is now concealed by a false
ceiling but the 1972 list description reports "timber roof,
trusses on timber and cast-iron supports".
HISTORY: according to Snell the Tiverton Market Act received
assent on 10 June 1825 although the market was not opened
until 8 June 1830, total cost was »8,392. Before it was built
marketing was carried out in the streets. The buildings were
in a bad sate in 1876 and "practically rebuilt" at a cost of
about »2,000.
(Snell FJ: The Chronicles of Twyford: 1842-: 269-270).



Listing NGR: SS9550012628

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

485287

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Snell, F J, The Chronicles of Twyford, (1842), 269-270

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.