Castle Cary's Tuesday market, and the shops built around it

Every Tuesday, all year round, Castle Cary's street market runs from 8.30am to 1.30pm, with general traders, plants and flowers, and food specialists. Around it are the fixed shops of Fore Street and the High Street, selling hardware, books and things for the house, and every week they get a crowd they did nothing to create.

How old is it?

That depends on what you count. The town's own history page says Castle Cary got a formal market charter from Edward IV in 1468. Whether it has met on a Tuesday ever since is another matter, and with no record I know of that says so, I won't claim five centuries of unbroken Tuesdays. The building at the centre of it all is the Market House, which the town chose to keep for itself.

A habit, not an occasion

A market every week does a different job from one every month. Bruton's farmers' market and the Frome Independent are occasions, worth planning a trip around. Castle Cary's Tuesday is a habit. Regulars fold it into their week like the school run, and a habit keeps coming back without anybody having to organise it.

That doesn't mean the crowd goes into every shop. Plenty of people who came for vegetables will walk straight past the hardware shop's window. The shops that do best are the least glamorous about it: open, stocked and visibly ready every Tuesday, without fail. A market only builds habits if the street around it is dependable too.

It can't do everything, though. It gives the town one strong morning, but the other five trading days, which is where most small shops make most of their money, are down to each business. And no market can make a shop worth walking into.

If you trade in the town, Tuesday belongs in your plans, and our page for Somerset businesses lists the market days alongside the rest of the local calendar.