Pudsey - Market Town or Town with a Market?

This blog will cause some controversy - but its a healthy debate to have

Ask someone to describe Pudsey and there’s a fair chance the words “market town” might crop up. Even Leeds Markets currently describes Pudsey as a “Victorian market town”.

Fair enough. We have a Market Place, we have an on/off market, and generations of Pudsey folk have shopped there.

But history has an irritating habit of getting in the way of a good description.

Because there’s another possibility: Pudsey wasn’t a market town at all. It was a booming woollen town which eventually needed a market.

From the late 1920s the open area in Pudsey centre held a market using temporary stalls, note the pedestrianised area leading from Church Lane to the Park. This now holds our ‘award winning’ bus station. From Britain from above_EPW023815.

The case for “Market Town”

Let’s be fair – Pudsey certainly looks the part, and I've brightened up these old black and white photos to help tell its story.

Our market has been part of town life for well over a century. Ruth Strong’s wonderful Pudsey in Old Picture Postcards Volume 2 takes us right back to its beginnings.

1880s the first Market on Waver Green up until 1889. This plot is now occupied by the ex HSBC/Midland Bank. Source Ruth Strong.

In the 1880s Waver Green, formerly common land, had become Pudsey’s first marketplace. It was wonderfully informal: huts housed Job Wilcocks’ hot-pea saloon, “Tripey Ross”, James Galloway’s grocery business, Billy Dibbs’ boot repairs and even Pudsey’s first fish and chip shop.

By around 1890 a more established marketplace had appeared nearby. Later photographs show shops eventually being demolished to open the Market Place towards Church Lane.

The market became important enough for the town centre itself to be remodelled around it.

Surely that makes Pudsey a market town?

The second market with permanent stalls. This ran from from 1889 until the late 1920s and was open until late in the evening with bands playing. This later became the old carpark/bus station. Source Ruth Strong.

Well... not quite.

Historically, a market town was more than simply a town which happened to have a market. Markets could be established through royal grant, charter or ancient customary rights.

And this is where Pudsey’s claim becomes a little wobbly.

Yes, Pudsey received a Royal Charter – but not for a market. Queen Victoria’s 1901 charter incorporated Pudsey as a municipal borough.

Nor, so far, have we found evidence of an ancient market right.

Instead, Ruth Strong’s photographs show something much more interesting:

The town came first. The market came later.

By 1952 our market space has mixed use, the stalls are not permanent and can be moved - and cars are only allowed to park on non market days! Source Ruth Strong.

From the farm to the factory

To understand why, we need to look beyond the stalls.

Pudsey’s great historical story is wool.

For centuries agriculture and domestic textile production existed alongside each other. Industrialisation changed that dramatically. Production moved increasingly into mills and people who had once combined weaving with growing their own food became much more dependent upon wages to buy life's necessities.

That included the food they no longer had time to grow.

Across industrial Britain, the loss of subsistence production and rapid urbanisation created a growing challenge: how do you feed large populations who no longer grow much of their own food?

Victorian working-class diets were complicated and often terrible. Cost and access to good fresh food could be major problems, particularly for poorer families and children. Meanwhile the expanding railway network increasingly allowed meat, vegetables, fruit and dairy produce to reach industrial communities in quantity.

Government was paying attention too. The Public Health Acts of 1872 and 1875 greatly strengthened local responsibility for urban living conditions.

And something interesting happens in Pudsey at almost exactly this time.

Pudsey's Local Board was established in 1872. Land associated with the later Market Place was still being used for other purposes during the 1870s.

Then, in the 1880s, Ruth Strong shows us Pudsey's first marketplace on Waver Green.

But the wider historical context fits beautifully.

This may be Job Wilcock's 'pey 'oil, where a bowl of pea soup cost a penny.
Waver Green 1880's. A source of cheap hot food. Source Ruth Strong.

Pudsey had become an intensely industrial community whose population increasingly needed convenient places to buy food and everyday necessities.

The market wasn't what made Pudsey prosperous and gave it space to grow.

Instead all the social changes that came with industrialisation, created the need for the market.

So what was Pudsey?

Pudsey Coat of Arms designed by Richard Shackleton,
this is the extra woolly version

Pudsey was a textile town

Lets not beat about the bush. Our woollen industry long predates the market. Cloth produced here was being sold in the markets of Leeds, Bradford and Halifax for centuries and eventually dozens of textile mills operated across the district.

We even put the story on our civic arms: a woolsack and crossed shuttles.

That was why research undertaken with Pudsey & District Civic Society eventually replaced heritage road signs describing Pudsey as a “Historic Market Town” with “Historic Textile Town”; that Trish and myself worked on to correct a historical misconception: West Leeds Dispatch – Pudsey's historic textile town signs

And there's an irony in all this:

Pudsey was making goods for other people's markets long before it had a significant market of its own.

None of this diminishes Pudsey Market. Quite the opposite.

Its story becomes more interesting because the market wasn't the reason for Pudsey's existence. It appears comparatively late in the story, alongside public health reform, improved transport and the changing needs of a heavily industrialised community.

The market is therefore part of our industrial heritage too.

So when Pudsey is described today as a “Victorian market town”, perhaps we've got the cart sitting before the horse.

Maybe “Victorian town with a market” is closer, but not as catchy.

Or perhaps, after more than 140 years of market trading, Pudsey has earned the title anyway.

I'll leave that one with you:

Pudsey – Market Town, or Town with a Market? What do you think?

Sources / thanks: Ruth Strong, Pudsey in Old Picture Postcards Volume 2 (1990 first impression); Pudsey & District Civic Society; Leeds City Council and Leeds Markets; The National Archives; UK Parliament; Britain From Above; and earlier research published by the West Leeds Dispatch.

Enjoyed the blog? Have an interesting Pudsey Market or family tale of your own? please leave some feedback in the comments. Wait - there's more! Follow for future blogs on a wide range of local interest topics.

All views my own unless specifically quoted, or clearly promoted on behalf of an organisation, group or individual. To avoid stepping on copyright toes I generate and edit my own images, credit given where others work is used.

©damosblogspot 2026