Once a month, the town’s pedestrianised centre is given over to the market. There’s a mix of stalls – getting on for a hundred of them. It’s part craft fair (woodworkers, potters, knitters, etc), part “collectables” (that’s junk shop stuff to you and me) and part farmers market. It’s a fun wander round.
The food stalls are not bad (although probably not as good as Ashton under Lyne). Perhaps a few too many overpriced bakers selling American style cupcakes (whatever happened to fairy cakes, I ask myself) and other cakes/desserts. Although there’s a couple of very decent bakers just selling bread
There’s good stuff to be had. Bourne’s Cheshire cheese for example (sold by Mrs Bourne here, while Mr Bourne does the Ashton market). There’s some good meat – I see a slow roast shoulder of mutton in my near future. And Eddisbury Fruit Farm, from near Chester, were there selling their apple juice – the Bramley is a cracker of a drinker – just the thing to drink with pork if, like me, you don’t drink alcohol. There’s stalls selling sausages and one was cooking them to serve up in barmcakes (although just a few miles away from our home, the barmcake had become a bap). We bought one as a second breakfast while we decided on which packs of sausages to get – three packs for £11 – not cheap but these are excellent sausages, well flavoured with pepper. There’s two pie stalls selling pies – the Great Northern Pie Company and Lord of the Pies. Both sell stuff that you won’t find in the supermarkets – not even in Wigan, pie capital of the north.
There’s also stalls selling coffee and hot food. There was paella, pizza, burgers, German sausage & potatoes and, amongst the others, the intriguing Cossack Cuisine. If it had been nearer lunchtime, we’d have been eating there on the hoof.
Well worth a small trip if you’re in this part of the northwest.
