Ormskirk Market Day Chauffeur Trips – Gingerbread, History and a 1286 Charter
Ormskirk has been trading under royal licence since 1286, when Edward I granted the monks of Burscough Priory the charter that still governs the town’s market more than seven centuries later, and a market day here remains one of the best traditional days out in the North West. Manner Borne Chauffeurs brings its luxury chauffeur service to West Lancashire for exactly these occasions, carrying visiting parties into the heart of the town on Thursdays and Saturdays and home again with the shopping stowed, and this guide sets out how to make the most of a chauffeured Ormskirk market day.
Seven Centuries of Market Days
Thursday has been market day in Ormskirk since the thirteenth century, with Saturday added to the rhythm of the town, and today around one hundred stalls fill the pedestrianised streets that radiate from the Victorian clock tower of 1876. The market’s reputation rests on Lancashire food – artisan bread, cheese, pies, fresh meat, fish and seasonal produce – alongside flowers, clothing and household stalls, and it draws shoppers from far beyond the county line, some arriving by chartered coach. Arriving by chauffeur instead, the party is set down beside the pedestrian zone at whatever hour suits, spared the market-day scramble for parking, and collected with the bags going straight into the boot.
The Gingerbread Town
Ormskirk’s sweetest tradition is its gingerbread, baked in the town since the early eighteenth century, when the celebrated Gingerbread Ladies sold it to travellers at the inns and, once the railway arrived, on the station platform. The town’s recipe won admirers as elevated as the future King Edward VII, who ordered it specially, and gingerbread is still sold on the market and celebrated at the town’s annual festival. No chauffeured market day should end without a supply for the journey home, which is precisely the sort of errand a driver is happy to wait for.
A Church With a Tower and a Spire
Above the market streets stands the Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul, one of a tiny handful of churches in England carrying both a tower and a spire at the same end of the building. The oldest fabric includes a Norman window of around 1170, the spire rose around 1430, and the great west tower was added in the mid sixteenth century to house the bells rescued from Burscough Priory at its dissolution – though local legend prefers the tale of a quarrelsome pair of sisters who each demanded a different steeple. The church is the resting place of the Stanley family and anchors a heritage trail through the town’s conservation area that fills the hour between the market and lunch very pleasantly, taking in the Georgian House among a dozen stops through the old burgage streets.
A Town Full of Stories
Ormskirk’s history rewards the curious. The market once did a brisk trade in patent remedies, and among its nineteenth-century sellers was a young man named Beecham whose pills went on to conquer the world. The town served as a Parliamentary headquarters during the Civil War, and William Shakespeare himself is reputed to have performed in the district, with nearby Rufford Old Hall among the venues that claim him. Even the town’s name carries a tale, drawn from the Old Norse for Ormr’s church, a reminder that Vikings settled this plain long before the market bell first rang. A chauffeured visit gives these stories room to breathe, because nobody is watching a parking meter.
A University Town With a Full Calendar
Ormskirk is also a working university town, home to Edge Hill since 1885, and the campus Arts Centre with its Rose Theatre gives the town a cultural calendar beyond its size. Graduation weeks bring some of the busiest chauffeur bookings of the year, with families travelling from across the country for ceremonies and celebration lunches, and a chauffeured graduation day – gowns, grandparents and all – is a fixture of the summer diary here. Visitors staying in the city beforehand are collected through the company’s chauffeur service Liverpool, because Ormskirk lies only thirteen miles north of the city with the M58 three miles from town. Term-time evenings at the Rose Theatre and end-of-year shows add a steady run of cultural bookings, and parents visiting students for the weekend regularly combine a campus tour with a Saturday market morning, which the driver threads together without a single parking decision being made by anyone.
Pairing the Market With the Coast
Market mornings pair naturally with coastal afternoons. Southport lies a short drive west across the plain, and continuing a market day with an afternoon on Lord Street through the established chauffeur service Southport makes a rounded day of West Lancashire’s best. For dedicated shopping expeditions beyond the market, the company’s shopping trip chauffeur service applies the same door-to-door treatment to any retail destination in the region, with the driver marshalling the bags while the party keeps browsing.
Booking an Ormskirk Market Day
The arrangement takes one call – the date, the party size, the pickup addresses fixed precisely with What3Words for the rural lanes around Aughton, Burscough and Scarisbrick, and the collection time left flexible for a market that always takes longer than planned. The town’s own journeys are covered year round through the resident chauffeur service Ormskirk. To book, call the Merseyside and West Lancashire line on 0151 909 3855 or write via the contact us page. Why just arrive when you can arrive in style.
