Nostalgia: The Shambles and Worcester Market Hall

A busy Market Hall in The Shambles in Decmber 1988

Before Timpsons was the instantly recognisable store on the corner of The Shambles and Mealcheapen Street, Shoetech was the shop in place

Who remembers buying their daily loaf from Quality Crust?

Fruity fruits was one of several fruit and veg stores in and around the city centre

Rumbelows was a byword for electrical goods for many years

Visionhire was the place to rent TVs, video recorders and so forth

Who remembers Wrights the bakers shop?

Contessa ladieswear adjoined Curtess

Curtess sho shop stood on the other side of the alleyway to Market Hall

The Market Hall in one of its many incarnations

Repair work in March 1991 heralded a new era for The Shambles, councl leaders having spent almost £50,000 in repairs and improvements to the paving laid only four years prior at a cost of £100,000

The Shambles at the end of the 19th century. Not a place for the squeamish - no fewer than 16 butchers still plied their trade on the thoroughfare

The Shambles busy with shoppers in the run-up to Christmas 1994. Note the festive weather

Michael Dowty's image from 1961 shows the black and white building at the corner of The Shambles and Church Street that housed J and F Hall ironmongers before its demolition

The Shambles as many remember it. Who'd be a pedestrian?

Thomspon's fish shop stood opposite Pratleys in The Shambles

Stan Pratley, of the renowned family china emporium in The Shambles, lent the paper these two images of long-lost pubs. The Liverpool Vaults stood opposite the rear of the former Woolworths store, while The Butcher's Arms occupied the site of what is

The Market Hall clock is returned to its rightful place in July 1957, several years after being removed as part of renovations to the hall

The Market Hall entrance as it stood in August 1986

The Market Hall was closed for six months towards the end of 1987 for a facelift and the results was this £350,000 transformation

Ivy Jones finally called it a day on her stall in the Shambles in 1990 - at the grand old age of 80

Pery Cull and his wife Hilda shortly before he shut his fruit and veg stall in the Market Hall in 1982, almost 50 years after he began trading there

The Market Hall in the 1950s, not long before it was demolished

In 1951 Richard Padmore’s famous clock had to be taken down for repair, paid for by the Hardy and Padmore company. Do you remember when Millets, John Lunn and Turners were in Worcester High Street?

A sale of china at Sigley's china stores in Market Hall

How the Market Hall looked during the reign of Edward VII