Appendix 1 A short history of market towns
Neil PoweTrevor Hart
The pattern of settlements we see today is the product of a long history of development and change. The origin of many of our towns and villages is to be found in their agrarian past, reflecting historical functional roles. Researching the period 1000–1540, Dyer (2002) suggests the main reason for the market towns’ existence ‘lay in the buying and selling activities of the ordinary people of the hinterland’ (15), with the hinterland containing many more people than the towns themselves (on average the hinterland had a population of 10,000 people, whereas the population of the towns averaged only 800 people). As such, the pattern of towns could be seen to reflect ‘the amount of time ...
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