HISTORY: Nelson’s mighty market hall
THIS week our column has an excellent and indeed a rare 1930s postcard which captures a splendid scene of Nelson’s Market Street in its hey-day.
here in the far centre we can see the mighty market hall opened in the year 1890 at the cost of £10,220, with the tall, magnificent clock tower being added in 1904 for another £2,035.
The market hall was a great success from day one of opening and by the 1900s, receipts by individual stall holders were exceeding £1,000 per annum, a huge sum back then.
Not long after this very photograph had been taken, on the Friday night of March 11th, 1932, the once proud and grandiose market hall burnt down to the ground with thousands of Nelsoners turning out to see the huge inferno.
A new, far less grand market hall was built on the same site for a mere £4,550, this being replaced in the mid-1970s by the bland neoteric library.
Geoff Crambie