The death of a market town
Looking around the sorry state of Northampton today, along with so many of our other urban areas, few can be confident of their sagacity in deciding what comes next.
In the centre of Northampton stands All Saints' Church. It is on the site of All Hallows, which was destroyed by the town's great fire – a largely forgotten event which happened nine years after London's more famous blaze. On its portico stands a statue of King Charles II, who donated timber to the reconstruction efforts of the town.
Although the church is beautiful inside, it suffers from its location. Outside often loiter groups of youths or the daytime drinking, and the area is best avoided on a Friday or Saturday night: the nearby McDonalds is the site of occasional stabbings carried out by the more excitable of Northampton's residents.
The sense of decline in the town is palpable. Nowhere is this clearer than when visiting its market.
Northampton's market has been operating from the same spot since 1235, a stone's throw from All Saints'. After its great fire, the town centre was rebuilt based around the Market Square. Much has been done in intervening years to destroy the architectural inheritance of the town, notably the giant 1970s car park looming over everything like some hideous structure from outer-space.
Yet the market, having traded for nearly 800 years in that spot, is on its uppers. The number of vendors is ever shrinking and now reduced to a few fruit-and-veg stalls and slightly shifty-looking chaps selling phone cases and chargers.
There just aren't enough customers: locals with any sense flock to out-of-town shopping centres with free parking and without the excitement of machete attacks or the pervading sense of decline.
And so the Market Square is being rejuvenated by the council. Over two years new paving and lighting will be installed as well as an 'interactive fountain', the absence of which has surely been responsible for the market's decline in fortunes.
In the meantime, the market will be shifted to the scenic setting of a large car park half a mile away. While it is promised that the market will return to its former location in late 2024, one wonders whether this is the case. Having slowly atrophied in its prime location, the market's decline is only going to be more pronounced in its new, less pleasant surroundings.
When 2024 comes around – assuming we haven't been vaporised in a thermonuclear war by then – I would wager that there will be no market worth mentioning to bring back to its historic spot. Presumably some more coffee places or charity shops will turn up to fill the void.
It is unendingly noted that we are living in times of unprecedented change. While the big ones grab peoples' attention, the smaller ones that slip through the net are no less momentous. Eight centuries of continuity – generations of townsfolk using the market – washed away by the tide of modernity.
Everything has a lifespan and we should not cry unnecessary tears. I, for one, seldom went to the market. The same, I assume, is true for the 10,000 people who were against its temporary relocation in an online petition.
Yet when everything is altering at once we are all beholden to the architects of modernity. Looking around the sorry state of Northampton today, along with so many of our other urban areas, few can be confident of their sagacity in deciding what comes next.
