Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/158

 did not stand at the junction of the cross roads, but at a little distance to the North, and Throsby says that it extended "from the opening where the pillar now stands partly over the midway, which just left room for carriages to pass, from which extended the sign of the Horse and Trumpet, a large Inn." Cox described it as "an exquisite piece of workmanship." It was removed in 1773, and sold, in portions, for a few pounds. The largest part of it in one place supported, in Throsby's time, the dining-room at the Three Crowns Inn. One of its limbs was left to serve in the place of the old Market Cross until the year 1836, when it was taken away, and placed in front of the Crescent in King Street, where it still remains. The Wednesday Market was removed from its old quarters by the Leicester Corporation Act of 1884, when a part of the Market Place was set aside for the holding of a market "as a market for the sale of fruit, vegetables, plants, eggs, butter and poultry only between the hours of six in the morning and four in the afternoon on every Wednesday throughout the year."

A very ancient market was held at Leicester on Saturdays in the present Market Place, which locality, as early as 1298, was called "The Saturday Market." In a Conveyance of that year a house at Leicester is stated to be bounded on one side by "the lane which leads to the Saturday Market." In the year 1300 a man was charged with an offence committed "in foro Sabbati." In 1316 the Place is spoken of as the weekly market, "forum ebdomadale." The Market Place was more extensive in former centuries than it is now, and occupied all the South-eastern corner of the Town. It was bounded on the Northeast and Southeast by the Town Walls, and on the inside of the Northeast wall ran a wide causeway, known as the Cornwall, where farmers used to show samples of their grain, and where horse-dealers displayed the paces of their animals. In the 16th century some part of the Cornwall was licensed for sheep-pens.

The opening and closing of the market seems to have been announced in old times by the ringing of a bell. 118