Talk:Market town

Scope

I added the above notice because I just created Begho, an article on an ancient trading town of present-day Ghana. At present, this article focuses exclusively on Western Europe. — mark ✎ 13:28, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agree this article is regional-centric.

One of the challenges in the Wikipedia is to be properly international without submerging valid regional and local concepts. As an example of what can/does happen, take a look at the word seter which is a simple mountain farm in Scandinavia. If you spend some time, you figure out what the transhumance article might have to do with seter, but you have to read and sort for a while in a rather poorly written mismash of material. And to make it worse, at one point that transhumance article had some structure and logic.

So my point is, perhaps, that we Wikipedians should figure out a way to talk about market towns in various regions without submerging legitimate local topics.

Cheers - Williamborg 00:38, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Someone who is interested and knowlegable - the "market" link points to a disambiguation page. This is not very helpful! It should point to a specific article (perhaps it used to but that's not much help now). Garrie 21:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Regional-centric

Is this article regional-centric? Maybe it has to be. I don't know much about the topic. But it seems to me that "market town" is essentially a law term. It does not simply mean that a market is taking place at that location. Rather, the king or some other eligible person has conferred the right to have a market. The first section of the article is rather explicit about this. The question is: Do other regions have such a legal tradition as well? If yes, the article should include that information. In contrast, the above-mentioned african town of Begho seems to be a place where a lot of trading is going on, but the respective article does not mention anything that is equivalent to the medieval law term "market town".--193.196.193.21 14:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

European

In the absence of further information I've stated that this is a specifically European legal status. Dancarney 09:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this is useful; it doesn't make sense to have articles so generic they lose their meaning.--Parkwells (talk) 20:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Distance between markets

I recall hearing on several occasions that in England, there is a law which guarantees the minimum distance between two markets, as the distance a tradesperson can walk with their wares, in order to have time to sell them at market, and walk home again, all in a single day. I'm loathed to add it to the article, though it's relevant, unless someone can assist in providing some kind of citation for the fact. I remember it having some kind of relevance when it comes to the legacy of the spacing of markets in now-urban London. Graldensblud 22:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I do recall of the selling and trading a love renaissance isnt this awsome you guys. I mean just knowing from the past

This

article has at least a few phrases that could easily be interpreted in two or more obverse &/or contradictory manners. Such phrases might be tightened, in order to reduce potential confusion. Hopiakuta 04:28, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Poor English

It would be nice if someone who actually can write English sentences could clean up the article. The first sentences alone are a catastrophe of stylistic and grammatical confusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.173.227.138 (talk • contribs)

It would be nice if people signed their comments too. Better still, it would be nice if they signed their comments and carried out the edits they're asking other people to do. - Dudesleeper · Talk 22:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

loose — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.213.96.146 (talk) 13:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Business Project?

IF there is a Wikipedia Business Project, a banner should be added here, as market towns were fundamental to the growth of business.--Parkwells (talk) 20:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Go for it. Mootros (talk) 08:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Scotland

I am deleting a reference to "mercat" crosses in Scotland from the section on England, as Scotland is not part of England. I do not think a Scotland section is appropriate: Burgh may have had market privileges, but there appears to be no separate designation of market towns. Abigailgem (talk) 07:29, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

"Lower status" of Painswick etc

What does this mean: "Market towns with smaller status include Minchinhampton, Nailsworth and Painswick near Stroud, Gloucestershire." ? Can someone help me by explaining how to trace through the history to see how this sentence arrived at its present form? It looks as though it might be saying something useful, yet it might not.

Painswick (I grew up there) is interesting because it is universally referred to locally as a village, but has a Town Hall. Does this mean it was "market town" at some stage? Or what?

Imaginatorium (talk) 05:46, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Town self-government legal status

The assertion in the paragraph about market towns' administrative status may be correct, but if it is, the example is a poor one. Although it's true that Newport is separate from Telford, that's simply a matter of the drawing of the boundaries of Telford New Town in the 1960s - which included bits of several Rural and Urban Districts, but none of Newport Urban District. Compare Wellington, which is also a market town but lies within Telford New Town and has no separate administrative status.

The unitary authority of Telford and Wrekin didn't exist until 1998 (and wasn't granted borough status until 2002), and its predecessor, Wrekin District Council, was only created in the reorganisation of local government in England & Wales in 1974. Newport is an older settlement by several hundred years!

Can anyone come up with a better example to support the assertion?DrDaveHPP (talk) 06:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

german speaking area

In the southern part of the german speaking area, the term Flecken or Marktgemeinde is/was used for localities with market rights, but no town privileges (as f.ex. fortifications). As town privileges included in this part always the market right, all towns where market towns. Cities (with a cathedral) are very rare and in Switzerland often not the bigest towns. --Eruedin (talk) 21:05, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Removed "Globalise" template

The page previously said "Does not reflect a world-wide view"... but this is not a constructive criticism. The subject of the page is a European historical notion, and necessarily Europe-wide, so I removed this tag. Imaginatorium (talk) 18:38, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Abolition of market towns

Deleting reference to the "original purposes" of market towns being abolished, "ensuring that they can never be created again". It is not clear what exactly this means, but in any case the citation of the Hereford Markets Act 2003 doesn't support the text however interpreted. The Act doesn't say anything about the creation of market towns and affects only Hereford. Queens1798 (talk) 19:37, 19 February 2017 (UTC)