Borough Market: How a London Market Responded to the Arrival of Railways in the Nineteenth Century

Food markets were a vital element in the economic life of Britain over many centuries, and the arrival of railways into urban spaces during the nineteenth century provided unprecedented opportunities for them to expand the range and volume of good that they sold. This article examines the impact of railways on these markets during the decades following the arrival of trains into London through a case study of Borough Market. This important London fruit and vegetable market is examined through the prism of its financial records. Detailed analysis of the Market’s income produces a timeline for growth, while the records for the goods ported through the Market help to explain the change. The case study also highlights developments in trading techniques at Borough Market that enabled it to prosper during the second half of the nineteenth century, despite limitations placed on its expansion created by the impact of railways on the urban physical environment.

retail and wholesale markets through which the urban population were provisioned, and the London markets became the 'central pivot' of food distribution, not only within London, but far beyond. 2 The disconnection between the producers and consumers of food increased during the nineteenth century as more people moved away from the countryside and into the cities, and by mid-century half of the population of England lived in towns and was unable to produce its own food. 3 This placed increasing pressure on suppliers to deliver enough food for the urban population and Victorian trains became a key element in the supply chain. Trains provided relatively fast, reliable, and cheap transportation of goods, which was especially beneficial for the delivery of perishable food into cities including meat, fish, milk, fruit, and vegetables. 4 Markets were a key element of the food distribution system of any town or city and, at the start of the nineteenth century, the primary place where perishable food was sold. 5 Such momentous changes, both in demand and in the supply of food, generated significant pressures on the traditional operating practices that characterised London's markets. There are, however, very few studies of how markets responded to the new challenges and opportunities posed by the railways. But by examining changes in the trading activity of urban markets over the early decades of railways, it is possible to explore the impact of trains on provisioning urban areas and on the markets themselves.
Before the advent of railways, early-nineteenth-century urban markets were faced with the problem of finding more food to meet rising local demand created by a rising national population and increasing urbanisation. 6 London's market gardeners could not supply all of London's needs and limited transportation opportunities made it difficult to source new suppliers. 7 This was exacerbated by urban expansion that forced food growers further out of town and made it increasingly difficult to deliver goods to market. 8 Over time, railways provided a solution to this problem and enabled to produce from distant counties and abroad to supply British towns and cities, including most of the food consumed in London. 9 But railways were also hungry users of urban space at a time when demand for land in towns and cities made land progressively expensive to buy, especially near railway stations. This limited the opportunity for existing urban markets to simply increase in size to manage a larger volume of goods, especially if their trade and reputation were rooted in their location and community. In addition, as cities such as London expanded, it became difficult for shoppers to reach the old, authorised markets each day and shopkeepers and local street markets developed to fill this need. 10 To manage the larger volumes of food and to service the rising number of street markets and food retailers, many of London's authorised markets were forced to consider new commercial methods and moved primarily into wholesale trading. 11 To examine the progression of perishable food delivery into urban markets, details of the volume of food transported by railways over their earliest decades of operation would be useful, but unfortunately very little relevant contemporary data is available. 12 Railway companies' surviving documentation from the period is often extensive, but these records tend to be minute books and legal documents that focus on company strategy and stocks rather than on details of what the trains carried. The South Eastern Railway Company director's minutes detail their persistent conflict with other railway companies over tolls and new lines, and while their management statistics recorded overall freight volumes and income, they only analysed major agricultural products such as grains and meat, a lack of detail noted by Lardner in 1850. 13 An alternative method would be to calculate how much food was grown, but the first comprehensive agricultural census was not taken until 1866, some decades after the first trains. 14 These early national statistics focused heavily on land usage, animals, and major crops, such as grains and animal feed, but ignored most fruit and vegetables, which Dodd acknowledged as subordinate to the produce of 'farm or fold' but still a valuable part of the public diet. 15 There was no data relating to orchard acreage or potato volumes until 1871 or any information relating to small fruit until 1890. 16 In addition, while these statistics showed rising levels of cultivation they did not consider how or, indeed, if all the produce grown reached the consumer.
Therefore, an alternative data source is needed, and one option is to look at the volume and variety of perishable food supplied to the final consumer through markets. 17 For fruit and vegetables, Covent Garden was the largest and most prestigious authorised London market, but even here, as Dodd noted, the clerk of Covent Garden market was 'entirely unacquainted with the quantity and value of products sold' in the market, only knowing tolls and dues collected. 18 Dodd also suggested that the growers and salesmen who traded in the market had no 'machinery for ferreting out' this data. 19 However, records do remain that can be used to better understand changing volumes of goods traded and evolving methods of trading and this article will use a case study of another of Victorian London's major fruit-and-vegetable markets, Borough Market. By examining its financial records over a fifty-year period, which includes the date of the first train services to London, data can be found to create a timeline of the Market's trading activity and map its unique relationship with the railways. This case study will provide new information about changes in the variety and availability of fruit and vegetables in a major London market and, most importantly, a better understanding of the decisions that transformed urban food markets. In particular, the work will highlight the driving forces that led Borough Market, like other London markets, to move increasingly to become 'great wholesale markets … for England' during the second half of the nineteenth century and how the railways contributed to that change. 20 Borough Market is useful case study for several reasons. The Market had been trading in the same locations since 1756-over 80 years before the arrival of the railway to London-and was primarily a fruit-and-vegetable market by the start of the nineteenth century. Described as 'a wretched agglomeration of potato merchants and greengrocer stalls' in the 1850s, it grew to a market of increasing importance by the 1870s and was one of London's three major distribution centres of fruit and vegetables. 21 The Market had always enjoyed good communications via road and river before the arrival of railways, but was uniquely positioned to benefit from the earliest days of railway freight transportation. It was located only a matter of yards from the first London railway terminus that opened in 1836, London Bridge Station, but more importantly, was under two miles from the Bricklayers Arms depot, which was devoted to freight from 1851. 22 Transportation into London from Bricklayers Arms used two major arterial roads, The Old Dover Road and Borough High Street, and passed conveniently close to Borough Market.
This case study is driven by financial analyses for the period 1831-1883, created using data contained in the Borough Market archive, in particular, the Trustee Minute Books and porterage reports included in the Stand Committee Minutes. The Trustee Minute Books provide an uninterrupted source, starting from the inception of the Market in 1756, and including the whole nineteenth century. 23 The quality and consistency of the minute books and the financial records is, undoubtedly, in part because Borough Market was created by Acts of Parliament that demanded that the Market Trustees maintained adequate records of its financial transactions. 24 In 1823, Parliament required the Market to produce six-month accounts that showed 'a true and just account' of all income and expenditure, part of a growing concern for more transparency of financial information relating to vestries and other forms of local government. 25 These more detailed six-monthly accounts are regularly recorded in the Trustee Minute books and benefit from a consistent layout, which shows income broken down across three major income streams and regular categories of expenditure. The analysis of these accounts shows changing trends in Borough Market's income and expenditure, produces a firm timeline for overall income growth, and identifies the type of income that changed most significantly. Other details in the Trustee Minute Books provide a narrative of events that support the financial timeline.
The porterage records identified different types of produce passing through the Market and provide information on the volume and type of goods traded. This information also supports the overall income data, especially tolls. The porterage is in the form of weekly or monthly reports, and although they do not cover the whole period, they are available for key years in this case study. Providing definitive figures for the volume of goods traded from the analysis is complicated by the variety of types of containers used to bring the goods to market, ranging from boxes of onions, sieves of soft fruit, to pads of lettuce, all of which had different weights. In addition, the source data does not record if the produce was delivered by train, although volume of growth is often shown in tender produce which most clearly benefitted from railway transportation. Despite these limitations, the analysis provides valuable trends that allow us to explain changes in the financial state of the Market and form the basis for understanding the relationship between the scale of operations and the smooth functioning of the Market as a place of sale.
The financial analysis covers the Market's trading from a baseline date before the first railway arrived at London Bridge and for the following 45 years, which provides ample time to identify the impact of railway transportation. This analysis uses the same trading income categories as the financial reports recorded in the Trustee Minutes and focuses on three major streams: rental income for market-owned properties, income from tolls, and income from market facilities. There were occasional other income items-not related to the major trading categories-reported in the accounts and these were included as separate items in the analysis to avoid skewing the major income trends. For this article, money raised by loans or through the sale of earlier Borough Market investments has been ignored. Figure 1 shows a summary of the total income generated by the Market, including the other income.
Between 1831 and 1861, income remained stable, despite the arrival of the railways to South London. There is a small sign of income growth in 1859, but the graph pinpoints a consistent improvement from 1865 onwards. By 1866, the Market's income had increased by 40% from its 1859 level and, although the rate of increase is not constant, the overall income trend is upwards. Market income increased by over 47% in the twelve years to 1878, and by a further 49% in the succeeding five years to 1882. In its simplest terms, Figure 1 suggests that Borough Market's income only started to expand from the 1860s and that the market then enjoyed rapid income growth.
It is important to investigate the origins of the 1860s income spike that appears to have triggered growth. Figure 2 separates out 'other income' from the total and includes any receipts not associated with the normal business of the market. The spike related to 'other income' is in fact two spikes-one a little earlier and much smaller than the major event in the mid-1860s. This income is attributable to compensation paid to the Market by the South Eastern Railway Company when it built an extension line from London Bridge to Charing Cross, which passed over Borough Market. It represented payments for the compulsory purchase of various Market properties and for damage to the marketplace during construction. Following months of negotiations, in 1862 the Market agreed to accept £13,500 for the sale of properties and for damage incurred and a further £2,250 for anticipated damage to the marketplace roof. 26 The roof money was paid over in 1862, causing the smaller, early income spike, but the bulk of the money was paid over in January 1864. The Market also earned an additional £1,500 interest by leaving the bulk of the compensation on deposit with the railway company until it was needed. It is interesting that Borough Market's success appears to stem from these payments, but the significance of the compensation money is rooted in the constitution of the Market. The original 1754 Act of Parliament, which created the Market, placed ownership of the market's property in the hands of the vestry of St Saviour's parish where the Market was located. 27 In the Market's first seventy years, the trading profits were to be primarily used to pay annuitants who had funded the building of the Market, and to make investments with any remaining balance. However, once the annuitants were all deceased, the Market profits were to be made available for the benefit of St Saviour's parish to relieve the 'very burdensome' parochial rates. 28 By 1823, most of the annuitants had died and a variation Act of Parliament required all future Market profits to be handed to the parish of St Saviour. The Market was not obliged to hand over the investments generated from earlier years' profits, but it had no further opportunity to increase its savings and had its financial decisions increasingly scrutinised by the parish.
Despite this financial limitation, the Trustees actively expanded the marketplace to accommodate more trade using their earlier investments and by raising loans. These were often significant sums including the purchase and preparation of land to increase the area of the covered market at a cost of over £12,000 in 1825, a similar expansion in 1834 costing £9,275 and, in 1840, the purchase of the old Grammar School land adjoining the Market at a cost of £2,250. Despite a thorough review of the marketplace layout, by 1843, the Market remained 'greatly crowded', and in December 1850 the Trustees proposed an ambitious plan to further expand and improve the marketplace at a budgeted cost of £25,000. 29 By now, the Market's earlier investments only stood at some £2,050 and the Trustees sought to finance their plan primarily through loans. However, the plan needed approval from St Saviour's vestry to proceed, and since the proposal was dropped in early 1851, such support was clearly not forthcoming. This left Borough Market Trustees unable to develop the Market, which they felt was imperative to preserve its trade and status, and this may well have cramped income growth in this decade.
But it was not only space that potentially limited trade in Borough Market: it was also the physical state of the marketplace and its buildings. The Market properties had been purchased up to 100 years earlier and some were showing significant deterioration. The marketplace was described as in a 'dirty and unsightly state' in 1843, and in April 1852 Trustees were advised that a London morning paper suggested that Borough Market was 'dangerous' because of the condition of its roof. 30 A hastily commissioned report on the roof described the wood around the skylights as perished 'to a considerable extent' due to maintenance not being completed regularly. 31 This, perhaps, reflects a lack of funds made available to properly maintain the market fabric and, despite some urgent repairs, some six months later the surveyor reported that the skylights were in an even worse condition. Fears about the state of the Market continued to be voiced in the following years and in September 1859 the Trustees' Minutes recorded the roof being 'in very bad condition, the rain coming through in many places.' 32 In addition, the rented properties were also deteriorating: in 1849 No. 4 York Street was described as in such a bad state of repair that it virtually needed rebuilding, while in 1857 two houses in Green Dragon Court were described as 'literally worn out'. 33 Borough Market was clearly in need of investment to maintain its properties and to improve the marketplace but was not allowed to freely use its trading profits. The significance of the South Eastern Railway Company compensation money was that it did not relate to the Market's trade and so did not have to be handed to St Saviour's parish. This made the funds available to the Trustees to spend for the benefit of the Market. Furthermore, the £17,500 received from the South Eastern Railway Company was a substantial windfall, given that the Market's total income in 1859 was only £3,303, and it provided ample funds for the Market Trustees to carry out an extensive development and repair plan. Details of the 1860s expenditure show that the Trustees used the compensation money to consolidate its financial position as well as make improvements. The Market's property stock was extended by building new premises to rent out and over £7,500 was invested on the troublesome marketplace roof. The railway extension led to the destruction of 'a greater part of the old market', but after the work was completed this area was extended into Green Dragon Court and included in the improvements to the paving, drainage, and general access of the marketplace. 34 Figure 3 compares expenditure on major capital work to the payments received for compensation, and it is apparent that once the money was released it was immediately utilised to improve the Market.
This analysis raises the possibility that the timing of Borough Market's financial success was linked specifically to the physical improvements made to the marketplace, although it is interesting that earlier capital investment shown in the graph, prior to the 1860s, seemed to have little impact on the Market's income. To better understand why the income improved it is necessary to examine in detail Borough Market's three main income components: property rent, income from market facilities (shown as stands), and tolls. When shown separately, in Figure 4, it is apparent that the income growth is primarily due to facilities rent and tolls. The property rent shows relatively little growth over the fifty years examined, despite the capital investment in new houses during the 1860s, and did not significantly contribute to the improved finances of the Market. Attention will therefore be given to the market facilities and toll income.
The market facilities' income included the provision of stands or stalls, warehouses, and counting houses within the marketplace. An overview of the market facilities' income line on Figure 4 shows that it remained fundamentally flat in  BOROUGH MARKET the first 25 years from 1831 and, following a dip in income during the construction of the railway line over the market in the early 1860s, only showed a substantial improvement from 1865. There are three main factors that could affect the facilities' income: the number of stands, warehouses, or counting-houses available, the prices charged to rent facilities, and occupancy rates.
An increase in the number of facilities for rent could have been caused by better use of the available space or enlarging the marketplace area. Expansion would have been expensive and difficult for the Market because the land around London Bridge had become valuable for commercial undertakings, which saw benefits from the proximity to trains, and because large areas were used by the railway for its own properties and tracks. To confirm that the marketplace area did not vary significantly, an overlay of a plan of the marketplace in 1849 ( Figure 5), taken from the Trustee Minute Book, and the Goad map of the same area dated 1887 shows little change to the site between the two dates. There is a small extension highlighted by the arrow on the overlaid image ( Figure 6), but this is likely to be associated with the development of land formerly rented from the Bishop of Rochester and purchased in 1853, while Green Dragon Court, which experienced a change of use in the 1860s, had always been shown as part of the Market. The 1860s capital project also involved re-organising the Market's stands and storage facilities to achieve maximum capacity, but since this was completed by 1867 it could only have affected the initial increase in this income stream and not the rise in the mid-1870s.
Another reason for an improvement in rental income could be explained by an increase in the charges for facilities. While a detailed review of annual rent by individual stand has not been attempted because of limited data, there are occasional rent review reports in the Trustee Minute Book that show that stand rents set in 1841 were not substantially changed until 1879, when the average rent increased by around 15%. Price change cannot therefore explain the initial income increase in the 1860s and only partially explains the 31% increase in rental income during the four years following 1879.
The third option for the rise in facilities' income was that occupancy levels increased. It is striking that the financial data identifies falls in facilities' income in the late 1850s and early 1860s, which correlates to the documented deterioration of the marketplace and the disruption caused by the railway line construction. These factors would clearly affect occupancy rates, while, in contrast, the better Market facilities after 1865 would be likely to encourage higher occupancy. This fact was confirmed by Mr Ormond, a Borough Market salesman, when interviewed by the 1888 Commission on Market Rights and Tolls, who stated that by that time there was rarely an empty stall in the Market. 35 The physical improvements to the marketplace in the mid-1860s undoubtedly encouraged traders to come to Borough Market, but this same period was also marked by an increased appreciation of the importance of the relationship between railways and markets. The proximity of the railways to markets became a factor of 'utmost importance' when building new markets or when selecting where to trade from because this avoided the cost and time involved in cartage for market traders 36 The 1888 Commission on Market Rights and Tolls noted that of 412 markets it identified only 22 were over 3 miles from a railway station. 37 Even some railway companies saw the business potential of markets and began to build their own facilities next to their termini to profit from the provision of perishable goods in urban areas. 38 The Great Northern Railway opened a Potato Market at Kings Cross in 1865 to manage its delivery of potatoes and other root vegetables into London and received 85,000 tons of produce from Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in its first full year. They built sidings directly into the market warehouses, an option that Borough Market unsuccessfully sought to implement in 1885. 39 In 1879, the Great Eastern Railway Company opened its Stratford Market to bring produce into London from East Anglian farmers. 40 From a mere 5,000 tons of produce delivered by train in the market's first full year of trading, it reached 33,000 tons in just seven years. 41 While never enjoying sidings built on-site, Borough Market's proximity to London Bridge and Bricklayers Arms termini would have encouraged traders to use the Market and contributed to its rising occupancy levels.
Higher occupancy did not only impact facilities rental income but also the toll income, since more traders created a higher volume of goods passing through the Market. Prior to 1865, market tolls were collected by a sub-contractor who paid Borough Market a set fee based upon expected toll income. After 1865, Borough Market collected its own tolls and the accounts show the actual value of the tolls collected rather than a contractual value. Consequently, some of the improvement in toll income between 1865 and 1866 must reflect the benefit of taking toll collection in-house. However, from the late 1860s, toll income became increasingly important to Borough Market, and by 1884 tolls contributed 59% of the Market's total income compared to 35% in 1865.
There are three factors that affect this income stream: who paid tolls, toll rates applied, and the volume of goods subject to tolls. Borough Market did not charge tolls to everyone who traded in the Market. The Market had never imposed tolls on traders who grew and sold their own produce, described as growers, but only on salesmen who gathered produce from different growers and made their profit on the marked-up price charged to customers. By the second half of the nineteenth century, this had become a subject of increasing dissatisfaction for the salesmen, and they placed increasing pressure on Borough Market Trustees to remove the distinction between different types of traders. Salesmen claimed that many growers no longer cultivated much of the produce they sold and should not receive preferential treatment. In response, during 1875, the Trustees attempted to change the market rules to permit tolls to be charged on all market traders, but the growers successfully objected to this proposal and the matter was dropped. 42 This eliminates changes in who paid tolls as a reason for the rise in this income stream, but a change in the percentage of traders who were salesmen rather than growers would have affected it. However, there is insufficient evidence in the archive concerning the status of stand-holders to provide firm data on this.
Another potential cause for an increase in toll income was that the rates applied were increased. Toll rates had to be formally documented and, although annual rate cards have not been found in the archive, there is some evidence of the toll rates charged on specific products at different dates. The 1829 Borough Market Act provided a list of the toll rates for different types and weights of produce, which ranged from a shilling for a wagon of root vegetables to one penny for a sack of peas. 43 The same Act shows that a ton of potatoes carried a toll of 1s 6d per ton and this same rate was still applied in 1888 according to Mr Holditch, the Borough Market clerk, when he gave evidence to the Commission on Market Rights and Tolls. 44 Although this is a single example of the toll rate remaining static, it concerns the most prolifically traded item in the Market and suggests that increases in the toll rates themselves are not the primary reason for the dramatic rise in toll income after 1865.
The most likely cause for higher toll income is therefore a larger volume of goods passing through Borough Market, but the financial reports alone cannot prove this. To support this proposition, data was extracted from the porterage records in the Stand Committee Minutes for ten key years, from 1864, and using data from 1858 as a baseline comparison. The porterage reports were produced weekly or monthly, with only occasional omissions, and consistently listed the type of produce, the container it was delivered in, and the number of containers ported. The primary limitation of the data is that it only covers goods moved by porters employed by Borough Market and not privately employed porters who worked for individual salesmen. 45 To show an increase in the overall amount of produce ported into the market (Figure 7), the weights for each type of produce delivered had to be made consistent. This was a challenge because, while the raw data provided details of the different fruit and vegetables delivered to the Market, many used containers associated with a specific item often with undefined weights, such as sieves of berries. To  Table 2. ACC/2058/01/02/007, London Metropolitan Archive. resolve this, a conversion table (Table 1) was designed for this case study to compute a standard poundage weight for any container/item and this was applied to the raw data. The conversion rates are based on an amalgamation of work done by the University of Nottingham and Ronald Zupko on historic weights and measures. 46 The use of the conversion rates means that although the figures in Figure 7 are not definitive values, they do provide valuable trends. Furthermore, since different produce types tended to use the same containers over the whole timescale reviewed, the consistent application of the conversion table clearly shows actual growth in any individual product.
The converted raw data used to create a summary of the volume of goods sold clearly shows that although there was some growth in the volume of goods passing through Borough Market between 1858 and 1865, the dramatic rise happened in the following years. The growth is not consistent year-on-year; indeed, some years show a fall in overall volume, but there is an overarching increase of 240% in the ten years from 1865. Table 2 shows that the most remarkable growth in the volume of goods traded at Borough Market is potatoes. The potato was a staple of the working-class diet, the most widely grown table vegetable in the nineteenth century, and a vital part of feeding the urban population of London. 47 As a low-value, high-volume product it was ideally suited to the cheap, bulk delivery option offered by trains, and often preferred by inland farmers to coastal shipping because it was more convenient than transporting their produce to a dock. 48 Potatoes accounted for only 16% of total goods poundage in 1864, but this jumped to almost one-third of the total weight of goods traded the following year and almost 40% by 1874. The quantities of goods traded, especially potatoes, suggest that Borough Market must also have seen changes in its traders' business methods to manage these larger volumes of produce. Since there was no significant increase in the size of the marketplace, this strongly implies that Borough Market moved increasingly to wholesale trading, involving salesmen who were liable to pay tolls: men such as J.W Procter, a fruit, pea, and potato salesman in Borough Market since 1834, who in 1880 advertised in the west country to source 4-5,000 barrels of apples; or Thomas Dalby, in the same business, who moved to Borough Market to expand his business in 1885. 49 Although wholesaling was not a new method of trade, it became more organised and commonplace during the nineteenth century, especially in London. Dodd noticed the progression from retail to wholesale in the 1850s at Covent Garden and Borough Market, where greengrocers and fruiterers were served wholesale and humbler inhabitants as retail customers. 50 Over the succeeding decades, many major London markets moved increasingly to acting as distribution centres for other markets, local and far distant, and for the rising number of shops, hotels, and restaurants. 51 The porterage data can also be used to identify the variety of produce brought into Borough Market to establish if there was a greater range of goods for sale over time. The analysis very clearly shows that this was the case and Figure 8 illustrates that almost three times more different varieties of produce were sold at Borough Market in 1874 than in 1858. The new items sold included more popular root vegetables, such as onions and carrots, but most striking is the inclusion of more delicate items, such as lettuce, cucumber, broccoli, and berries, which required fast delivery and were easily damaged on rough roads during transportation.
The financial and porterage information has provided data to produce a detailed timeline for Borough Market's trading from 1831 to 1883 and a close examination suggests that the improvement to Borough Market's income was linked to higher tolls and facilities rent. Since the area of the marketplace was fundamentally unchanged, this financial improvement is likely to be the result of higher occupancy levels of the market facilities and more goods passing through the market, likely facilitated through wholesaling methods. But were these changes directly driven by railways solving the limitation of food delivery? Interestingly, the growth of the railway infrastructure dovetails convincingly into the Borough Market growth timeline.
In the early nineteenth century, the delivery of fruit and vegetables into London markets had relied on easy access to the sea via the Thames and usable roads, since canals were rare. 52 Most tender produce was grown relatively locally to ensure it arrived in the markets in a fit state for sale and depended on farmers bringing their goods to market by cart. The volume was restricted to the size of the cart, while the effective distance that could be travelled was limited to the speed of the horse and the condition of the roads. 53 As late as the 1850s, London had 15,000 acres of market gardens within 10 miles of the city in places such as Kensington, Deptford, and Camberwell. 54 Orchard fruits and less tender vegetables came primarily from Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, utilising water and road transport. 55 The least perishable agricultural goods, such as potatoes, could be sent to London from further afield using coastal shipping, which though faster than canals or horses, could be limited by bad weather both at sea and on roads leading to departure ports. 56 As the population of London rose, the demand for residential land forced food producers increasingly further from the metropolitan centre and extended the distance that delicate and perishable goods had to travel to market. 57 It was, therefore, increasingly difficult to provide sufficient fruit and vegetables from local sources to feed the rising number of Londoners, whilst access to more distant producers was severely limited until the arrival of railways. 58 The railways created a 'national market in food' that removed the problem of extending local food sources for urban areas and enabled the whole country to contribute to London's needs, but the development of the rail network took several decades. 59 The construction of train lines between the 1830s and 1850s saw railway companies focused on building major lines between cities, towns, and ports and especially focused on connections to London. During these years, the railway companies gave 'perfunctory attention to agriculture and rural communities' needs and desires and this omission was only addressed when railway companies fully appreciated their business potential. 60 The 1860s saw additional railway lines constructed, giving large parts of the United Kingdom access to trains for the first time, but it was not until the 1870s that the railway network reached more isolated rural areas. This fully developed railway network greatly benefitted all forms of horticulture and enabled farmers to cultivate remote acreage and utilise special growing conditions which would have been commercially un-viable before. 61 Perishable foodstuffs especially benefitted from railways because they could be sent longer distances between the producer and consumer and still arrive in saleable condition, a point officially acknowledged in the report from the 1855 Commons Select Committee on Metropolitan Communications. 62 Contemporary observers also noticed the role of railways, reporting significant volumes of root and green vegetables arriving in London by rail from Liverpool and Cornwall during the 1850s, while Dodd believed 'hundreds of thousands of fruit and vegetables' were sent to London by the various railway companies. 63 Borough Market had traditionally received fruit and vegetables from Kent, Sussex, and Surrey arriving by road and water, and the South Eastern Railway Company, which did not enjoy an industrial base for its freight income, saw the delivery of 'garden produce' a potentially profitable business as early as 1843. 64 In 1844, extra goods trains were laid on from Staplehurst in Kent to deliver produce into the metropolis during the fruit season, while their line from Folkestone harbour enabled 'very large supplies' of currants, other fruits, and green vegetables to be readily shipped in and out of the continent. 65 Fruit and vegetables were treated like other goods and loaded into standard goods wagons, with the exception a few high-value items that were loaded into the parcel van, but freight trains 'revolutionised' the delivery of fruit and vegetables. 66 The Bricklayers Arms depot had special sidings built for the receipt of fruit and hops and Dodd describes over 160 tons of fruit and nuts from Kent and abroad delivered there in just one summer night in 1855. 67 In the following decades, the acres of Kent laid to fruit had a 'tendency for a steady increase' from 11,587 acres in 1878 to some 18,000 acres in 1888, growing pears, apples, plums, and cherries, and over a thousand acres of raspberries were planted in north-west Kent between 1855 and 1875. 68 By 1879, more than 130 fruit trains went into Blackfriars station in August, while the same month in 1886 saw over 150 tons of cherries alone shipped by train, most to London. 69 But delivery methods did not improve over the decades and led to damage and loss of profit on some delicate produce, and by the 1880s Kent fruit growers wanted a 'complete reformation' of the way fruit was handled. 70 Specialist fruit vans, with shelves and ventilation, were only developed in the late nineteenth century and the South Eastern Railway company did not build any until the early twentieth century. 71 There is no dispute that the national railway system extensively handled the delivery of fruit and vegetables during its early years and extended the available range and volume delivered to London and therefore Borough Market. 72 Furthermore, the dates of the railway expansion into rural areas coincide with the rise in the volume and range of goods sold in Borough Market. The lack of appreciable uplift in trade at Borough Market during the 1830s to 1850s, despite improvements and expansion of the marketplace, may reflect that railways primarily replaced existing food delivery methods rather than increasing the quantity of goods being delivered at this time. In contrast, the Borough Market timeline does show evidence of a significant increase in the availability and range of fruit and vegetables when the railway network became more accessible to agricultural interests. This encouraged the expansion of fruit growing in Kent and, with greater access to the continental growers through fast trains, is reflected in the Market's larger volumes of soft and orchard fruit being sold. The increased volume of potatoes and green vegetables at the Market is in line with the data from specialist railway markets. It is therefore fair to assume a link between the railways and higher volumes of produce delivered to Borough Market from the 1860s, which contributed to its move into wholesale trading.
The results of one case study to establish the railways' affect on urban markets must be approached with caution because it may simply reflect the history of this specific market. However, the case study does provide an insight into the role of railways to provide increasing stock for London markets at a time when the impact of railways on urban space made it difficult for markets to expand their sites or service the larger population. Borough Market's response was the same as many of the original, major London markets in the nineteenth century, which Booth noted in 1902, that they all moved over to wholesale trading. 73 The Borough Market case study is also an example of the usefulness of analysing historical financial data. A financial history can provide information that is not available from other sources and shed new perspectives on established facts, including the outcome of decisions made in relation to its property. The established view, both contemporary and from later historians, was that Borough Market became a more successful market and moved into wholesale trading during the nineteenth century, but there was no data to support these statements or to confirm when the changes occurred. Only by analysing the income of the Market was it possible to show when and by how much the Market expanded commercially during the nineteenth century, and how this encouraged a move to wholesaling. The Market's unique history is also a reminder that economic events alone cannot fully explain changes in urban infrastructure, and that it is also important to understand the decision-making process and institutional arrangements that underpinned any capital expenditure.

Notes on Contributor
Rosalind Stokeld is a qualified accountant who has worked in industry for many years. She completed her history undergraduate degree through the Open University, followed by a research masters with York University that considered the impact on Borough Market of the arrival of railways up to 1885. This project included a major section analysing the financial records of Borough Market and this has formed the basis for the article. She is currently undertaking a PhD at King's College London that examines how public urban improvements were financed during the Georgian period.