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The foundations of the old Market House seem to have been found in the two blocks or pieces of masonry in the main street at the turn to Railway Street, one on the east and the other near the west footpath, nearly along a line across the street from the corner of Mrs. Casey's house to that of Mr. Campbell's store.
The tradition was quite definite with the last generation that previous to the erection of the present Market House buildings in the Square, in 1810, the Market House stood here, at the junction of Market street and Castle Street, crossing the main street on a row of arches.

The arches gave space for the passage of carts and cattle through them, and supported a storey with a room or rooms which was, we presume, the Town House, in which the Corporation meetings were held and the Borough Court sat. Here the Portreeves dispensed judgement in their solemn " Court of Pye Powder," the curious corrup¬tion of the old Norman 'Pieds Poudres' - dusty feet, the court for the trial of small offences or claims for debt or trespass or perhaps profiteering, in which towns men or aggrieved marketers from the country could walk in to seek justice without any preliminary toilet or formalities of legal procedure.

Over this building must have hung the town clock that present fills the tower of the modern Market House. It was gift to the town from an old citizen, Timothy Armitage, Portreeve of the Borough, 220 years ago.

Its bell, which rings out the hours clearly still, has the inscription, ' H. P . made me 1705, Ardee'. H.P. are the initials of Henry Paris, a bell-founder, who cast, if we mistake not, the bells of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

It is hard to picture where exactly the sellers showed their wares and the big scales hung (the beam, dated 1711, was in use till lately) ; it must have been at the side of the street. In our times of broad and high cart-loads of hay and corn and of motor lorries, a structure like this would be a hindrance to traffic, but the arches must have given span enough for the narrow 'spoke wheel cars' and their prede¬cessors, and for the horse-back loads of corn and potatoes.

They also made it very convenient for the farmer of the tolls to exact the market dues. It may have been here he broached the barrel of beer with which he regaled the freemen of the borough as part of the yearly price which he paid the Corporation for the tolls. This position of a market house standing across the street was a feature of other old towns. It is to be seen still in some towns in England.

From an article byjos. T. Dolan, M.A. in Tempest's Annual 1929p. 9

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