The Market House
Shoreham historian Henry Cheal tells us that following the great storm of 1703 that blew down the town’s original market house another was built in its stead in 1711 on 10 columns and stood opposite the Crown and Anchor pub.The new market house was described as having consisted of ‘an oblong canopy of freestone (a fine grained stone, usually sandstone or limestone) embellished with gothic ornaments, supported by ten columns’ and was ‘a fine piece of architecture.’ Was it merely a canopy or roof supported on columns – maybe not as Cheal refers to the new building as a market house? It was itself later removed and replaced by another market house contemptuously described as ‘a mean building of brick,’ in East Street near the New Road junction in 1823. From there we are told it was taken to the island at the bottom of Southdown Road where it would have been a landmark seen by the crowds on their way from the station to the popular Swiss Gardens.