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Updated: May 13, 2025
When the weather would allow, they were ranged in columns in the High-street, and at other times deposited in the Leather-hall, at the East end of New-street, appropriated for their reception. This market was of great antiquity, perhaps not less than seven hundred years, and continued till the beginning of the present century.
Early perhaps in the sixteenth century, when the house of Birmingham, who had been chief gaolers, were fallen, a building was erected, which covered the east end of New-street, called the Leather-hall: the upper part consisted of a room about fifty feet long, where the public business of the manor was transacted.
We have two officers, annually chosen, by the name of leather-sealers, from a power given them by ancient charter, to mark the vendible hides; but now the leather-sealers have no duty, but that of taking an elegant dinner. Shops are erected upon tan-fats; the Leather-hall is gone to destruction, and we are reduced to one solitary tanner.
The court was afterwards held at the Leather-hall, and the expence, which was trifling, borne by the bailiff. Time, prosperity, and emulation, are able to effect considerable changes.
The under part was divided into several: one of these small rooms was used for a prison: but about the year 1728, while men slept an enemy came, a private agent to the lord of the manor, and erazed the Leather-hall and the Dungeon, erected three houses on the spot, and received their rents till 1776, when the town purchased them for 500l. to open the way.
The room over it was designed for the court leet, and other public business, which during the residence of the lords upon the manor, had been transacted in one of their detached apartments, yet in being: but after the removal of the lords, in 1537, the business was done in the Leather-hall, which occupied the whole east end of New-street, a covered gateway of twelve feet excepted, and afterwards in the Old Cross.
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