Before the museum opened here in 1949, the original part of this building held the district’s ancient weekly Butter and Egg Market. The central part of the museum was the Meat Market and the Fatstock Show continued to be hosted in and around the Museum site until the 1980s. The Meat Market itself formed part of the public museum in 1983.

Featured image: Butter and Egg Market building, the original part of the Museum (credit: Museums Association/Philip Sayer).

This story of a Cornish egg merchant before the Second World War has been contributed by Paul Phillips.

“Back in the day, my father worked for a blind egg merchant at Leedstown. They had daily rounds where they toured the countryside collecting eggs from all and sundry. On Saturdays, they would bring them to the Butter Market by horse and van for ‘candling’ which would take all day.

Candling

Candling was a process where each egg was individually placed in front of a candle to test for freshness. Then all the eggs were packed into wooden boxes between layers of straw (no collapsable cardboard honeycomb sections in those days). Father’s horse van would have been reversed up to the granite steps in front of what is now the museum’s front door, from where the eggs were carried into the Market for this purpose of candling.

At the end of the day the boxes of candled eggs were ‘thrown’ by two men several layers high, roped down ready for the onward journey to Gwinear Road Station. This was the routine come rain, come shine and whether it was a fine Summer’s evening or a dark Winter’s night with a raging gale. Having unloaded his eggs and completed the paperwork he had to drive his horse and van back to Leedstown where the horse was bedded down and fed and the van cleaned as necessary and stowed under cover.”

By Paul Phillips