Planning permission was no problem in 1826 Bicester. Just gather together some men liberally plied with Sir John Barleycorn by the ‘respectable’ inhabitants of Bicester and, voilà, Bicester town centre transformed in two days.
“On Saturday last, a perambulation of the parish of Bicester, Oxfordshire, took place ; after which a great number of the most respectable inhabitants dined together at the King’s Head Inn, and the poorer inhabitants were admitted into the yard and liberally treated with beer. Enlivened by the juice of Sir John Barleycorn, and instigated, it is supposed, by some of their richer neighbours, the latter proceeded in an immense body into the Market-place, where stood a long range of buildings which had been long a disgrace to the town, comprising the town-hall, shambles, cage, and two dwellings, the occupier of one of which had withstood every inducement which had been long held out to him to remove. Several hundred persons being assembled, the shambles and the residence of that individual were soon pulled down. A person who was present states, that he counted on the roof of the shambles alone, at one time, 37 men. On Monday morning the people again met, and completed the work of demolition ; on which occasion a man named Alexander Hunt fell through the joists and broke his leg. It is reported that the gentlemen of the town will make good every loss sustained by the individuals, and that they have it in contemplation to erect a handsome market-house on the site of the demolished buildings.”
Stamford Mercury, 2nd June 1826.