Food for thought: the weight of history

“BE HONEST: IF YOU WERE TASKED WITH DESIGNING A WORLD-CLASS FOOD MARKET, IT WOULDN’T LOOK A LOT LIKE BOROUGH”

Borough Market, which is run by a charitable trust, exists “for community, the love of food and a better tomorrow”. This statement informs everything from our Food Policy to our work with local schools; it also sparks lots of questions about what we do and why we do it. This autumn, we’re throwing some of those same questions out to experts beyond the Borough Market community.

This week’s answer comes from Mark Riddaway, a food writer and historian and the author of our book Borough Market: Edible Histories.

Question: Is a 1,000-year heritage a blessing or a curse?

The greatest gift bestowed by history onto Borough Market came from a few quick strokes of a quill. Since the early Middle Ages, a regular food market had been held on what is now Borough High Street. In 1756, in response to crippling traffic congestion on this busy road up to London Bridge, it was announced in parliament that this age-old trading centre would be permanently closed. The local community, facing the loss of a vital asset, lobbied for the right to buy a plot of land just off the main street and move the market there. Their voices were heard. A new law was passed declaring that this relocated market would remain for the “use and benefit” of the public “for ever”. Not on some fixed lease. Not with any break clause. Forever.

Now there’s a bit of luck. As a result of a centuries-old Act of Parliament, Borough Market is still owned by the community, in the form of a charitable trust. Today, that small patch of land, purchased through what amounted to a local crowdfunding campaign, would go for an absolute fortune. But unlike the many historic city markets whose halls have been turned into flats, offices or retail parks by private landlords or underfunded councils, Borough can’t ever be sold, closed or relocated. Under the terms of the Act, it can’t be anything other than a market – and that will remain the case until either a change in the law or the heat death of the universe.

This unique aspect of Borough Market’s 1,000-year history is a genuine blessing, not just for traders and shoppers but for anyone saddened by the slow hollowing out of our once-characterful urban centres. In other respects, however, its heritage is… if not a curse, certainly a significant challenge.

Let’s be honest: if you were to sit down today with the task of designing a world-class food market, it wouldn’t look a lot like Borough. You’d maybe start with a couple of clear, easily controlled entry and exit points. You’d then sketch out some nice wide passageways, arranged to optimise flow and avoid any bottlenecks. You’d create plenty of space for delivery trucks and refrigerated storage. You’d make the whole place as accessible as possible. You certainly wouldn’t carve a noisy railway viaduct right through the centre and invite the city’s bird population to make itself at home.

Borough Market is, of course, the inverse of all that – a result of centuries of hotchpotch expansion and the fateful decision by the South Eastern Railway company to extend its central London lines in 1862. Consequently, the teams at the market responsible for cleaning, maintenance and security need to be at the very top of their game. So too do the traders, who maintain exemplary standards of food hygiene within a highly complex open-air setting.

In the Venn diagram of blessings and curses, one major consequence of the market’s age sits right in the middle – the crowds. As a direct result of its rich history, Borough looks amazing. It’s not some bland, boxy, echoey structure. Instead, the jumble of old buildings, the collision of architectural styles, the narrow passages, even that damned viaduct, all create an overwhelming sense of character and heritage. Add in the stunning displays of produce that traders take such pride in creating and you have a place where the aesthetics are, along with the quality of the food, undoubtably a major part of the draw.

The result over the past few years, fuelled by the growth of social media-driven food tourism, has been a rapid rise in footfall. Since the 1990s, Borough has evolved from a half-empty wholesale market to a hidden foodie gem, to a regular fixture of tourist itineraries. Visitors now flock here in their millions to take pictures and soak up the atmosphere. There are clearly some benefits to this burgeoning popularity, but they’re not evenly accrued across the trader population. For some of the stalls – particularly fresh produce traders who cater to home cooks – a high volume of people coming to enjoy the feel of the place impedes business rather than bolstering it.

The paradox of popularity is one of the many challenges that Borough Market’s charitable trust will wrestle with in the coming years. But that’s nothing new. Every hurdle faced by Borough in the past 1,000 years, from the closure of the ancient market to the arrival of the railway, to the slow death of the wholesale market in the late 20th century, has somehow been cleared. Only two things have remained constant, both now enshrined in the trust’s official charitable purpose: this is a food market, and it exists in Southwark for the benefit of the community. Exactly what shape that takes has shifted as our city and food system have evolved – and will doubtless shift again.

In this evolution, history has another gift to offer. For all its sense of heritage, Borough Market is not an institution that has ever sought to preserve itself in aspic. Buildings and spaces have come and gone as the market’s size and function have changed. The oldest structures listed by English Heritage are a few unremarkable-looking bollards in the Green Market, dating from 1813. Even a building that appears to be the historic centrepiece of the market is in fact a monument to its evolutionary power. The beautiful Floral Hall portico, originally part of the Covent Garden Piazza, was salvaged during the 1990s redevelopment of the Royal Opera House and installed here in 2003 as the retail market was starting to take off in a big way.

That recently appropriated 19^th century façade is a symbol of how Borough Market embraces its history without ever being hemmed in by it. To meet the obligations of that 1756 Act, that’s something this place will have to keep on doing. Forever.