Melton Mowbray - Part 02 - Cattle Market
w/e 21 September 2008
All this week's pictures were taken
with a Kodak DX6490
Continuing our walk through the rain soaked streets
of Melton Mowbray we followed hundreds of people to one of the
main attractions in the town on a Tuesday and headed for the
complex known as the Cattle Market.
As we passed through one of the gates into the Cattle Market,
we spotted one of those dog-handling soldiers mentioned in Part
1 and followed him to seek refuge from the weather in the Farmers'
Market and Food Hall.
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Inside we were greeted with an array of stalls where all manner
of "Fair Game" was on display to tempt the visitors.
Shortly we would pass through the opening seen here in the centre
of the image into another section of the market but first some
of the produce in the Farmers' Market warranted a closer look.
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One such product could be found in one of the small units running
down the right hand side of the building and that product was
cheese. There were a number of varieties on sale but the one
we were after was the "King of Cheeses", Stilton. Similar
to the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie, Stilton cheeses, both blue and
white varieties, enjoy the protection the European Commission
and only cheeses that conform to certain conditions can legally
be called Stilton. One of those conditions is that they are made
in either Derbyshire, Leicestershire or Nottinghamshire and the
seven or eight dairies licensed to make them are centred on Melton
Mowbray.
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This image shows some of the cheeses on sale with most of the
Stiltons being seen in the top right hand corner. Samples were
available to "try before you buy" and although we already
knew what Stilton tasted like, we sampled some anyway. A strange
fact about Stilton cheese is that the village in Cambridgeshire
that gave its name to it cannot legally make the cheese and Stilton
cheese was never actually made there. In the eighteenth century,
Stilton was a staging post for coaches on the London to York
road and Cooper Thornhill, landlord of the Bell Inn introduced
travellers to the soft, creamy, blue veined cheese bought from
a farmer's wife who lived near Melton Mowbray. The cheese eventually
took its name from the village and the rest, as they say, is
history.
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Leaving the Food Hall we passed through into another section
of the building into what is described as an "Antique Fair"
but here among the genuine antiques were people plying their
trade with old books, postage stamps and old coins along with
many other miscellaneous items.
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In another building on the site, the" Fur and Feather"
auction was in full swing many people milling around the cages
containing all varieties and breeds of game, poultry and pets.
Lot 357 was just one in a row of cages and the birds seemed just
as interested in the prospective purchasers as vice versa.
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And of course the Cattle Market wouldn't be complete without
some cattle and Tuesday is the day each week throughout the year
that the Livestock Market is held. Melton Mowbray Market is proud
of the fact that it is able to sell all categories of cattle
and is not a "slaughter only" market.
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Many different breeds of sheep were also present in pens in another
huge covered area and the aisles between the pens gave farmers
the chance to meet up, inspect the animals and perhaps catch
up on the latest gossip, discuss the price of meat, wool and
maybe, in hushed whispers, recipes for mint sauce.
From the public viewing area sheep could be seen filling the
entire building but my advice to you would be not to try counting
them. It could send you to sleep! As we left the Cattle Market,
it was still raining but by the time we had driven the twenty
plus miles back home, it had started to clear up. The following
day dawned bright and dry but by then Melton Mowbray's Tuesday
market had long since closed for another week.
Back to Part 01
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