10. Wool bale, at Petersfield
This sculpture commemorates the weekly livestock markets which took place in and around the town square for many centuries, along with annual markets on the heath.
In medieval times, Petersfield’s population would have been around 6-700 people (compared to over 13,000 now), including trades found in any town of the day: butchers, bakers, brewers, shoemakers, carpenters and blacksmiths. On market day, the town would have been busy, noisy and probably smelly - full of sheep, cattle and horses, wool bales like this one and the farmers, merchants, weavers and tanners from the surrounding villages who’d come to trade.
Wool merchants lived in the grand houses in The Spain which were, unusually for the time, tiled - ‘Spayne’ being an old word for tile. Sheep were penned here before being driven up Sheep Street into the market. Petersfield became prosperous through producing and processing wool - in the reign of James 1 (1603-1625) it was said that that Petersfield’s wool industry supported 1,000 poor people in the area, who lived by weaving. Most would have lived in surrounding villages; merchants would take them the raw wool by packhorse and collect the woven cloth.
‘Tarw’ (pronounced ‘Taro’) is the Welsh shout by drovers for ‘Bull’ and there is still an annual Taro Fair on the heath, although today it offers fairground attractions rather than livestock!
Petersfield was also an important stagecoach stop on the London-Portsmouth routes; in 1830 some 27 stagecoaches passed through each day. As a result, there were many ale-houses! South of the village of Buriton, Shipwrights Way uses a now very quiet rural lane that was one of the routes used by the stagecoaches.
Petersfield Museum is well worth a visit and Visit Petersfield has many more ideas.