As early as 1533 there stood some kind of municipal building, often used by the Corporation Merchants. Billson’s Medieval Leicester reports an internee writing.
“Immediately as we came to Leycestter, Master Mayor sent me forthwith to a most vile prison called the Gaynsborrow, then offered to put gives and fetters upon my legs and so to lye upon hard planks without bed or straw and without company or comfort.”
So as well as leisure rooms its cellars were used as a prison. In 1691, a lease was offered for a room under the Gainsborough next to the dungeon.
A new Gainsborough was built circa 1745.
The Chamberlain entertained the great and the good in the upper floors, whereas the ground floor offered trading space.
A new Corn Exchange was built in 1850 – in two parts. The first, a single-storey completed circa 1851, was mainly a market hall. Around four years later an upper floor and staircase was added after a competition was held for the design. This was won by FW Ordish, complete with a stylish stairway crowned with a clock tower. It initially earned poor reviews, but now is looked upon as possessing considerable architectural merit.
