A Swan Song for the Social Fabric

I just watched The Coral’s new video, set in Birkenhead Market, and I found it heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure. As a suburban child, my first experience of Sheffield’s Sheaf Market would have been in the company of my clothes-making mum, as she led me through a maze of stalls in search of the women selling long, colourful rolls of fabric. Here, people spoke different to us. There was a smell of disinfectant and tobacco smoke. It was cheerful, upretencious and alive.

Later, in my adolescence I would comb the grid of stalls like a determined pac-man in search of the place that sold patches with band names on them – for my denim jacket. I’d hurry past the bucher’s with the pig’s heads and the sound of the bone saw. With my gaze focused on the ground, I’d notice the the floor tiles with their abstract ‘Pointilist’ design that had looked like it had been created with bingo dabbers. South Asians ran the clothes stalls, bantering and having a laugh, sounding as Yorkshire as anybody in the place. At the nails and hair salons, girls chewed gum, sassy and confident, not dismayed by the lack of glamour in this everyday setting.

Every town in the UK has (or had) these covered markets, as planners gradually cleared outdoor traders to make room for road developments from the mid-19th century. As well as offering cheap goods, they offered protection from the weather and an increased sense of safety. In his book ‘Pies and Prejudice: In Search of The North’, Stewart Maconie visits Bury market and remarks, ‘I saw an elderly man buying an old-fashioned shaving brush, an egg timer and a quarter of humbugs from two adjoining stalls. Now that’s what I call one-stop shopping, Mr Bluewater’.

Markets are not only places where you can find everything you need; they are egalitarian. Walking into one, there is a strong sense of being sucked into the collectivity of working class life. A sense of shared understanding and belonging hangs in the air. Any airs and graces you might normally carry around are of no use to you now. Everyone is the same here (even if they’re not).

Sadly, these places are no longer the thriving hubs they used to be. Planners, councils, governments, have little interest in the social glue they help to provide. But worse of all, the shoppers themselves have been swayed by the convenience of online shopping. Haven’t we all?

About 15 years ago I worked briefly on a stall in Liverpool’s St John’s Market selling football merch – yes, me! Even then, people said the market wasn’t what it was. Next to me was a fish stall where the guy kept the same fish on display all week, without refrigeration. It absolutely stank. Opposite me, the newsagent had decided to sell up.

After a long decline and a dispute over rents between traders and the council, St Johns Market was finally closed in 2024. The lower part of the building operates as St Johns Shopping Centre, with character and traders’ patter in short supply. There is no longer even anywhere to sit down, unless you are a customer of the food court. As for the floors above that housed the market, the council are still seeking tenants for what they described in Nov 2025 as “an incredible opportunity for something different and exciting” in the city centre. Watch this (empty) space.

Meanwhile, Birkenhead Market appears to be soldiering on, just about. If you’re on that side of the water why not visit the market. You might even see a pop star making a video!

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