HE fought at the Battle of Hastings alongside his half-brother William the Conqueror before commissioning the famed Bayeux Tapestry in which he is depicted cheerfully wielding a club amidst much carnage and mayhem.

But what did warrior cleric Odo of Bayeux have in common with another powerful, pugnacious French nobleman, William de Valence, the first Earl of Pembroke and scourge of the Welsh?

For a while, they both owned Swindon.

Odo was awarded the modest hill-top settlement – today’s Old Town – along with many other tracts of countryside and the title Earl of Kent as a reward for his sterling efforts in defeating Harold Godwinson in 1066.

But belligerent, ambitious Odo wasn’t cut out for a peaceful existence as lord and master of sleepy “Suindone.”

Some 16 years after the Norman Invasion he was stripped of his assets and jailed for planning without royal approval a military expedition to Italy – either to defend the Pope, or to become the Pope, it was never made clear.

De Valence, however, had a far greater impact on Swindon… one which has echoed down the centuries and is still both relevant and constantly in the news today.

As well as battling alongside his half-brother Henry III to quell a barons’ rebellion before becoming the mainstay of Edward I’s campaign to subjugate the Welsh, he also held Swindon’s first ever market.

We know this thanks to our friends in Marlborough who in 1274 discharged an angry missive against the upstarts of Swindon.

Having acquired its market charter from inept King John 70 years earlier, Marlborough clearly didn’t appreciate a spot of healthy competition.

Its malcontents moaned that de Valence had been holding unlicensed markets in Swindon since 1259, costing Marlborough traders 40 shillings a year.

Their quibble – the first ever record of a Swindon market – set the tone for the town’s markets down the centuries; all sorts or rows and squabbles have enveloped them and they continue to rumble today.

These, over the centuries, have included herds of cattle tramping through the High Street angering shop-keepers, and pigs creating unacceptable aromas and snorts… much to the anguish of the more genteel Swindonians.

In recent years, numerous market-related wrangles have ranged from traders being kicked out of the “big top,” a petition to bring back Swindon’s Christmas market and banning street markets from the town centre.

The latter are now on the verge of being brought back owing to overwhelming public demand.

Back in mediaeval times you couldn’t call a town a town – even a relatively insignificant one like Suindone – if it didn’t have a market.

Despite Marlborough’s discontent, an unflustered de Valence continued to hold markets in Swindon during the 13th Century which gradually enabled its growth.

In 1289 the settlement was referred to as Chepyng (old English for market) Swyndon and in 1336, Market Swindon.

Developed by the de Valence family, the 13th Century market town took shape around a rectangular grid bordered by streets now known as High Street, Newport Street, Devizes Road and Wood Street.

A Market Square was also created off High Street – pretty much where it is today.

Swindon’s oldest recorded street? Nyweport Street, as documented in 1346 – meaning New Market Street.

For a couple of centuries Swindon toddled along as a small, quiet and by all accounts rather pleasant market town described as a “larger than average agricultural community.”

The Goddard family acquired the Manor of Swindon in 1563 and a document still exists – scribed in suitably fancy writing – officially granting them permission in 1626 to hold a weekly market and two fairs.

A fair was like a market only much larger and staged once a year. People would come from all over Wiltshire to buy and sell horses, cattle and sheep, and to make merry.

A timely slice of mid-17th Century fortune further boosted Swindon Market; in fact – two slices.

Both proved a bonanza for Swindon, but disastrous for Highworth.

Far larger and grander than unassuming Swindon, Highworth haplessly became a Civil War garrison – first for the Royalists, then the Roundheads.

The blasting of cannon and the thrusting of pikes were not exactly conducive to trade, so the sellers and buyers of livestock sought more peaceful pastures and headed for Swindon. Hard-pressed Highworth suffered a second blow, this time with an outbreak of the Black Death, further encouraging its dwindling band of buyers and sellers to avoid the town like the plague – if you’ll excuse the pun – and steer for Swindon.

Visiting Swindon in 1652 Wiltshire chronicler John Aubrey was moved to record: “Here on Munday every weeke a gallant Markett for Cattle, which increased to its new greatnese upon the plague at Highworth.”

By 1718, Swindon was the venue of one of the 32 weekly markets held throughout Wiltshire. The Square proudly boasted a market cross; sadly, long gone.

Over the years the Market Square became a hive of haggling, hawking and hubbub with produce and other goods as well as animals noisily bartered. Old Town’s taverns, it is safe to assume, bulged.

Passing through Swindon in 1814 author, editor and antiquary John Britton wrote of the weekly corn market, fortnightly cattle market and regular horse sales.

The latter largely took place in Devizes Road – then called Short Hedge owing to its predominance of trees and hedges on which the nags were tied.

At one stage, cattle were herded through the middle of Swindon before dawn; deals were struck “by candle and lantern” – all done and dusted by breakfast.

Controversy reared its head, however, when the markets began to take place later in the day.

Picture the mid-19th Century scene as herds of cattle formed in two rows along High Street, sometimes reaching back into Wood Street and Cricklade Street.

The noise, the mud, the dust, the stench – veritable mountains of fresh dung, one imagines.

It would be fair to say that the sale pigs in Market Square probably didn’t ease tensions.

However inconvenienced, the good citizens of Swindon could not kick up too much of a stink for fear of jeopardising their all-important market town status.

Describing the weekly activities in Market Square during the 1840s J Silto, in his 1981 book A Swindon History wrote: “Every Monday the local farmers, tradesmen, cattle dealers, pedlars, cheapjacks, and others jostled together in an atmosphere of agitation and excitement.”

Swindon Market was chosen as one of the key indicators of grain prices, resulting in the emergence of two of Old Town’s best known structures.

Elegant Market Hall was built in the Square in 1854 followed a decade later by the spacious Corn Exchange with its landmark Italianate tower.

Meanwhile, a new livestock market was created in 1873 behind Newport Street and continued for more than a century; its once vital presence is today marked with a rather splendid statue of a bronze ram.