Our HISTORY

Sneinton Market has a rich and culturally significant history to the people of Sneinton, surrounding areas, and Nottingham as a whole.

Sneinton Market first made a name for itself selling ‘pots’ – crockery, to non-local folk – as well as second-hand clothing and furniture. Nottingham’s main wholesale market remained in Old Market Square, but Sneinton became a popular location for any overflow, or for new tradesmen trying to cut their teeth. 

The site of Sneinton Market Avenues was originally residential properties known as ‘the bottoms’, these cramped, run down properties were practically slums. Before it was developed as a recreational public space, the square was the site of a clay pipe workshop owned by a Mr Thomas Edwards.

The construction of tram tracks in Old Market Square in 1900 sparked the real beginning for this new market place, as the wholesale market uprooted and made its way to Sneinton instead. The first set of rickety wooden buildings were erected on the corner of Bath Street and Southwell Road, and business soon began to boom. In 1926, a tram depot built on Southwell Road provided excellent travel links, and two years later a wash house was built adjoining the baths.

The success didn’t go unnoticed by the council – in the 1930s, Nottingham Corporation decided to modernise the wholesale market, demolishing the houses nearby and built the sturdy, open-fronted units we recognise today. Nelson Street retained its name, the next three streets became Avenues A, B and C, and the final road was named Freckingham Street after Alderman H.J Freckingham, Chairman of the Markets and Fairs Committee who spearheaded the new developments.

One particular success story was Hinton’s, the only stall in Nottingham to stock bananas. All bananas came to the city by rail, and had to be ripened before sale; they’d be taken down to the caves on Manvers Street, stored underground and blasted with gas heaters until perfectly yellow.

By the late seventies, due to the production of cheap new goods and superstore supermarkets, it fell into a state of disrepair, and the next thirty years saw many plans for the area proposed and rejected. In 2014, another era of investment began thanks to money from the European Regional Development Fund. The old wholesale units were restored, and new creative start up businesses moved in. The Creative Quarter company head office was also established on The Avenues, to promote the locality, and support creative and digital enterprises to grow and thrive.

Article originally published by LeftLion

Photos from Nottingham Post