Cleethorpes Market Place used to look very different to how it is now, with buildings in the area that currently has a car park on it.
In the early 20th century, these buildings were knocked down to create the space we currently know, and the area covered over with layers of material to build up the road and pavements.
As part of the redevelopment of the Market Place, specialist surveys need to be done involving taking core samples to determine the pavement and foundation construction and condition. The cores are targeted to locations of surface failure so will provide us with a good understanding on where we potentially require additional pavement works during construction.
On Wednesday 26 and Thursday 27 February, ahead of the start of the outdoor market season, several individual parking bays in the area will be taken out of action a short period to create a safe working space and undertake these specialist surveys.
Additionally, short sections of street will need to be closed off for short periods to take these core samples. Localised traffic management will be implemented while this is done. Each sample will take approximately one hour.
Once these core samples have been completed, the information can be included within the tender package for the works, which are due to start later this year.
As these works are underway, let’s have a look at some of the history of the Market Place!
From illegal markets to a bustling town centre: the history and future of Cleethorpes Market Place
Cleethorpes Market Place is an area of Cleethorpes steeped in history and culture, but how much do you really know?
With its redevelopment just around the corner, let’s take a look back at the origins of the seaside town and the influential Market Place that drove tourists and traders to the seafront.
Cleethorpes and the surrounding areas were occupied by hunters and gatherers during the prehistoric period, and Beacon Hill was a focus during the Anglo-Saxon period, but other than occasional finds there is little yet to suggest that the Romans lived here.
In medieval times Cleethorpes was split into three hamlets: Itterby, Oole and Thrunscoe, the names derived from a mixture of Old English and Old Scandinavian.
The word ‘Clee’ means clay in Old English and is thought to refer to the boulder clay that is prevalent in the area. Oole, which is now the Market Place, refers to the fact Cleethorpes sits in a dip.
“Hole”, or “Hoole” or “Oole” is first mentioned in the Lindsey Survey of 1565 as a small fishing settlement of 13 families.
Its omission from the earlier Domesday Survey of 1085 could be it either didn’t exist then or it was not significant enough to be taxed, as Domesday was primarily documenting land values so a tax could be levied.
“Hole” is recorded as having held markets in 1322, which the Borough of Grimsby claimed were illegal. These markets are thought to have been local people selling their wares such as food, possibly fish, crafts and clothing.
But by 1362, John of Gaunt, the son of King Edward III obtained the right to hold a Thursday market in Thrunscoe and a fair for St Michaelmas on 29 September, and so right to hold the market was given, and that right still exists today.
The population continued to grow and in 1802 the first Methodist Chapel in Cleethorpes was built in ‘Chapel Yard’ which is now part of the Market Place.
By 1850, the name of Hole had gone as the area became known more as the collective town name, Cleethorpes. Many of the new buildings being built can still be seen today and the layout of Market Place and the surrounding roads would be familiar to locals and visitors alike today.
Cleethorpes was expanding at pace, at this time, there were three hotels and 106 lodging houses. The town was also seeing a higher number of visitors with some 30,000 visiting per day during the peak times.
In the coming years, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway company would pump around £100,000 into the town to make it a tourist hotspot, changing the parlous cliffs into graceful promenades, seawalls and boating lakes.
The area was described by one writer as “one of our oldest watering places, and from its situation, the most salubrious on the Lincolnshire Coast”.
In the early 20th century, a number of buildings that used to be in the middle of Market Place were also knocked down to create the space we know now.
By 1930, 600,000 people were visiting every Summer, with the Market Place acting as the hub of the town and a key link from the popular pier and prom, via entertainment venues such as the Empire Theatre to the blossoming B&B trade in the rows of housing behind.
There were a range of butchers, fishmongers, cafes and other businesses selling their wares to tourists who had used the now long-established railway line to come to Cleethorpes.
Along with Sea View Street and St Peter’s Avenue, Market Street, is one of the centres of commercial and social life in the town.
Fast forward to the present day, and Cleethorpes and the wider North East Lincolnshire area, plays host to upwards of 8.5million visitors a year, spending more than £630million in the local economy. A brand new Market Place will help contribute to this in the future.
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