Market Place

One of the largest market squares in England, still busy on Thursdays as it has been for centuries.

The Market Place at the heart of Devizes is genuinely impressive — a broad, irregularly shaped square ringed by coaching inns, Georgian townhouses, and the domed Corn Exchange. At its centre stands the Market Cross, topped by the notorious 1753 inscription about Ruth Pierce. The square has been the commercial centre of Devizes since the medieval period, and on Thursdays it still fills with market stalls selling local produce, clothing, and household goods, much as it has for centuries.

The surrounding architecture rewards a slow walk. The Bear Hotel, a former coaching inn on the square, has been trading since at least the 18th century. The Corn Exchange opposite, with its neoclassical façade, dates from 1857. Even on non-market days the square is a good place to sit at one of the pub tables and watch the town going about its business. Devizes has avoided the worst of chain-store homogenisation, and the streets leading off the square still have independent shops.

things to do sight
A story
In 1753, a woman named Ruth Pierce came to Devizes market to buy wheat with three other women. She short-changed her share, swore she had paid in full, and declared she hoped to drop dead if she was lying — whereupon she immediately fell dead in the marketplace, the unpaid money found in her hand. The incident was thought so remarkable that the town erected an inscribed stone on the Market Cross recording it as a warning against the sin of falsehood. The stone is still there.