6. St Paul’s Square and the Lanes.

Records tell us that there was at least one church in Saxon Bedford. It is most likely that this church was St. Paul’s Church as this is well embedded in the layout of the Northern burh. St. Paul's Church suffered greatly throughout the various seiges of Bedford Castle - the stone from the church was often used in the repair of the castle. When the siege was finally over in 1224 some of the stone from the castle was returned and used to repair the church.

St Paul's’ was always central to the town and the area around it has always been used as a market. However, the market was not based on an open square but a series of narrow lanes.

The map below, taken from Brayley’s map of 1807, shows the layout of some of those lanes

The names of the lanes included Butcher Row, Gooseditch Lane, Pig Market, Fish Market, Vine Street, Vine Corner, Stone House Lane, Pudding Lane and possibly Girdlers Lane.

Stonehouse lane is possibly named after a stone house that was the town prison before it was situated 1589 when the prison was moved to the town bridge.

Pudding Lane ran south from the Poultry Market to the river. Just as with Pudding Lane in London, it was the route by which the "puddings" i.e. the intestines etc. from animal carcases were taken down to the river for disposal.

Crawley and Freeman mention that: ‘the removal of this unpleasant debris was always a problem and the Black Book of Bedford, issued at the end of the 16th century, laid down strict rules that the butchers of that time must "carry their intrayle and garbages daylye the same day the beast be kylled into Offalle Lane"

Butcher Row was also known as 'the Shambles' - a more famous Shambles still exists in York. It was a word often used for butchers shops or open air meat markets -'probably from the Anglo-Saxon Fleshammels (literally 'flesh-shelves'), the word for the shelves that butchers used to display their meat'

It was in the early 19th Century that the square began to be opened up, and the name ‘St Paul’s Square’ was confirmed by the 1835 Improvement Commission.

Figure 3: St Paul's Square pre 1910



Figure 4: St Paul's Square at unveiling of John Howard Statue 28th March 1894



Figure 5: St Paul's Square 1894 – 5