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LLANIDLOES MARKET HALL C. E. VAUGHAN OWEN, F.S.A. This timber framed building, with one end of stone and the other of brick, stands at the cross roads in the middle of the small Welsh market town of Llanidloes. Underneath is an open market place, with pitched or cobbled paving; above it, supported on oaken beams and arches, is the old court room. From the roof rises a cupola in which hangs the market bell. It is the only surviving example of a "black and white" market hall in the whole of Wales, though such buildings are still to be seen in the Welsh border country. Llanidloes is governed by a Mayor and Corporation. The first of its two Charters dates from 1280 when the Prince of Powys obtained from King Edward I the privilege of two yearly fairs and a weekly market on Saturdays to be held in his town of "Thlanydleys infra Walliam", rights which are operative to this day.1 DATE The actual date of erection of the Old Market Hall is not known. It may indeed have been standing here as early as 1574 when the Great Sessions were held at "Llanydlois" before Sir John Throckmorton,2 but other evidence seems to point to a date nearer 1600. The original purpose of the building and the probable date of its erection are best understood by examination of the history of a similar building (now destroyed) which stood in the middle of Broad Street in the neighbouring town of Newtown. Documents relating to a law- suit of 1615 tell us that in about 1570 permission was given for the erection in Newtown of "a booth hall and tolls shoppe, and a gaiole or prison house under the said booth hall." We also learn that "the said buyldings did, and yett doe, serve the bailiffes and burgesses of the said towne for keepinge of their Corts and for the Judges of assize to keepe their sessions as often as occasion serveth." 3 As in Newtown so, in all probability, in Llanidloes. When Jenkin Lloyd of Berthlwyd was Sheriff of the County in 1588 the Assizes were held in Welsh- pool, but when he held the office of Sheriff for the second time, in 1605-6, the 1 Mont. Coll., XXVI (1892), 153-4. 2 "Municipal History of Llanidloes" (E. R. H. Turner), 233. 3 Mont. Coll., XII (1879), 95.