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High Street, 1955
High Street, 1955

The Barras, 1920s

Burrell Collection Photo Library

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The Barras, 1920s

The Barras market in the early 1920s. Traders have erected coverings of tarpaulin and other materials to protect their goods from rain.

Maggie McIver (née Russell, 1879-1958) was a grocer who had traded from a hired barrow in her youth, and who decided to invest in her own barrows to let to other traders. She assembled a stock of 300 barrows at her yard in Marshall Lane in Calton, and then struck on the idea of hiring out market pitches. In 1923 Maggie acquired a plot of ground between London Road and the Gallowgate as a market place, and in 1926 she erected a covered market in Moncur Street. More buildings were erected and a growing army of traders moved indoors to the stalls she offered for hire there. Although there are few barrows there today the market retains its world-famous name, "the Barras".

Reference: 59.83.37

Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Museums

Keywords:
barrows, market stalls, market traders, second-hand clothes markets, shoppers, shopping, street markets, street traders, tenements, The Barras



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