OH Joy, they’re digging up The Shambles again. This time it’s so that Severn Trent Water can tackle the problem of leaks and bursts and, in the words of a suit, provide “the people of Worcester with a water supply they can rely on for future generations”.

Which is nice to know. Although I thought that was what we were paying rates for now. No one wants to pay for an unreliable water supply. Never mind. Don’t be facetious. Move on.

Or back, as in the case of this piece. Because The Shambles has been one of Worcester’s busiest shopping thoroughfares for centuries and one can only wonder at the chaos today’s roadworks would have caused before the street was pedestrianised in the early Eighties. Traffic would have been backed up from here to Kingdom Come.

The road was originally called Baxter Street but had a name change in the 1670s to Shambles Street when the local Chamber (the body responsible for governing trade in the city) decreed that it be the main area for butchers to erect their stalls, or shambles. So began The Shambles long association with trade and its associated attractions.

In 1990 George Lewis, who had been 30 years a police office in the old Worcester City Force, spoke of his time as a young beat Bobbie patrolling the narrow, bustling street in the 1940s and 50s.

At one time, he recalled, The Shambles had eight pubs – the Atlas, the Baker’s Arms, the Coach and Horses, the Liverpool Vaults, the Market Tavern, the Butcher’s Arms, the Market Hall Vaults and the New Inn. All but three had gone by the time George arrived, but there were still no less than 17 butchers’ shops, many with their own slaughter house at the back. When a beast that objected to being killed, escaped and ran amok up the street it was Pamplona brought to Worcester as the crowds scattered.

There were also eight grocers, three fishmongers, two green grocers an ironmongery, a furniture business, a china dealer , a boot and shoe shop, a confectioner, a clothes shop, fish fryer, a florist , a tripe dresser and a Woolworths Bazaar. There were also barrow boys and flower sellers.

George said the best time to visit The Shambles was on a Saturday evening in winter when the shop windows were ablaze with lights and the butchers were auctioning their left over weekend joints.

He explained: “It was in the days before fridges and butchers sold off their meat at knock-down prices because they would obviously have to throw it away otherwise.”

In the 1950s, The Shambles even had its own cricket team. Formed in 1954, The Shambolians comprised businessmen from the street, their employees, friends and city personalities, few of whom had ever played the game outside their back gardens. Their first match, organised via Worcestershire Farmers Co-op, was against Wichenford and on winning the toss Shambolians captain, fishmonger Bill Thompson, elected to bat. “Fishy” took guard, but there was no sign of a bowler. Until the local landowner opened a field gate 60 yards away and in steamed an 18-years-old raw boned country youth to deliver a very fast first ball which hit “Fishy” in the mid-riff, laying him low. Fortunately he recovered, the match was drawn and everyone went down the pub.

At the time The Shambles also had one of Worcester’s most distinctive buildings. The black and white property stood at the north end of the street at its junction with even narrower Church Street and was the home of ironmongers J and F Hall. When the business ceased in 1961, developers wanted to knock it down and put a supermarket on the site. Sacrilege, said the City Council, and refused the proposal. But the builders appealed to Whitehall and won.

A result which maybe played no small part in the council’s decision to allow wholescale demolition of other old buildings beyond the southern end of The Shambles not long after and led to the much criticised “Sack of Worcester”.