Market Hall, Monmouth

The Market Hall
The Market Hall, now the home of Monmouth Museum
General information
Type	Market Hall
Address	Priory Street
Town or city	Monmouth
Country	Wales
Coordinates	51°48′47″N 2°42′56″W / 51.813028°N 2.715444°W / 51.813028; -2.715444Coordinates: 51°48′47″N 2°42′56″W / 51.813028°N 2.715444°W / 51.813028; -2.715444
Current tenants	Monmouth Museum
Opened	1840 (1840)
Renovated	1968–69
Design and construction
Architect	George Vaughan Maddox
Designations	Grade II listed
Renovating team
Architect	Donald Insall Associates

The Market Hall, Priory Street, Monmouth, Monmouthshire is an early Victorian building by the prolific Monmouth architect George Vaughan Maddox. It was constructed in the years 1837–39 as the centrepiece of a redevelopment of part of Monmouth town centre. After being severely damaged by fire in 1963, it was partly rebuilt and is now the home of Monmouth Museum (formerly the Nelson Museum). At the rear of the building are original slaughterhouses, called The Shambles, opening onto the River Monnow. The building is Grade II listed as at 27 June 1952, and it is one of 24 buildings on the Monmouth Heritage Trail. The Shambles slaughterhouses are separately listed as Grade II*.

By the 1830s, the main road into the centre of Monmouth from the north, Church Street, had become increasingly congested and insalubrious. The street was narrow, and was used by most of the town's butchers. According to local tradition, a local gingerbread maker, Mrs Syner, was closing the shutters of her shop on Church Street one evening when the mail coach to Liverpool went through at a gallop. Her apron strings were caught in one of the horses' harnesses, and she was dragged along the ground for some distance. Escaping serious injury, she grabbed the coachman's whip, knocked out some of his teeth with the handle, and marched back to her shop to begin organising a petition for a new road to be built to bypass Church Street. The Borough Council then organised a competition for the best scheme, with a prize of £10 for the winner. The scheme also needed to include a new Market Hall, as the traditional site of the town's produce market, beneath the arches of the Shire Hall, faced disruption because of the need to extend the accommodation for the Assizes.

The prize was won by local architect George Vaughan Maddox, who proposed a new road running to the west of the town centre, immediately above the bank of the River Monnow. Maddox's scheme was for a carriage road—now Priory Street—supported by a viaduct built upon the river bank. A new Market Hall was to be built on one side of the road, supported by the arches. The town's slaughterhouses or "shambles" would be sited beneath the arches, and the waste from them would drain directly into the river. Maddox is also believed to have been responsible for new buildings on the opposite side of Priory Street.