LOOKING Back's feature last month on the hive of activity that Blackburn's old Market Square was even on non-market days brought forth this reader's picture from 1927 (top) that recalls what an important place it was in Lancashire's fruit and vegetable trade.

For it was where farmers and market gardeners came in droves to sell their produce to the wholesalers who occupied more than 50 permanent stalls -- many of which were also retail outlets on the Wednesday and Saturday market days -- clustered at the rear of the old Market Hall and along its Town Hall street flank and behind the Town Hall.

Their shed-style premises are pictured (bottom) awaiting demolition in November, 1964, when the transfer of the market to its present-day Ainsworth Street-Penny Street site also switched the wholesale businesses to a new location adjoining it.

But when these farmers and traders were pictured among wooden boxes, wicker baskets and piles of cabbages at the rear of the Town Hall on a September day nearly 75 years ago -- the date being told in one of the wall posters in the background advertising a Rovers Reserves game at Ewood Park -- Blackburn's old fruit and vegetable market was in the midst of a growth boom.

For in 1921 farmers brought 999 loads of produce to the town's market, but by 1931 the total had soared to 4,317 loads -- an increase of 312 per cent over the decade-- so that each week 275 tons of potatoes were sold along with 50 tons of carrots and turnips as well as 22,500 dozen bananas, 2,500 cases or oranges and 2,750 boxes of apples, with an extra 1,500 barrels of apples being sold each week from September to March.

Not all of it was consumed, for, as the picture shows, plenty of the produce ended up on the floor -- so that the council had to clear 900 to 1,000 tons of refuse a year from the market-place.

Demolition has transformed the location where the photograph was taken -- it is now occupied by the main ramp to the shopping precinct car park. Then, the spot was also used on market days for the sale of poultry -- and caged birds, pigeons and live rabbits -- making the place known as the Hen Market. It was also the location of the annual Pot Fair which was held every Easter, while the main Market Square was occupied by the traditional funfair.

"A stroll through the far corner devoted to poultry has induced many a man to 'keep to'thri hens for a hobby'," reported the old Blackburn Weekly Telegraph in 1910. And remarking on the 'tremendous' volume of fruit sold on Blackburn market, it added: "In the banana trade there has been an amazing growth in the past 12 or 14 years and an average supply of 1,000 bunches a week all the year round passes through the market."

Glimpsed in the background of the 1927 picture and seen (middle), in 1959 when it was being converted into the council's public relations department, the old Borough Arms pub in Exchange Street -- once one of the few licensed houses in the district to be owned by a local authority -- serves Blackburn drinkers once more today after being 'dry' from the 1950s to 1977 while it was used as municipal offices. But about the time the older picture was taken, its yard was also home to another market -- for the buying and selling of horses. The often-roguish dealers there were known as 'The Forty Thieves' or 'The Dollopers' and the place had a reputation for attracting out-of-work idlers.