The Hungerford Stairs were the entrance point to Hungerford Market from the River Thames. They are now the site of Charing Cross railway Station.
Hungerford Market occupied a strip 126 feet wide, extending 465 feet northward towards the Strand. The market had been built in 1680 and rebuilt in 1831 and was named after the Hungerford family of Farleigh Castle, near Bath in Somerset.
The site had become the property of the Hungerford family in 1425, when it was acquired from Sir Robert Chalons and his wife Blanche by Sir Walter Hungerford (later Baron Hungerford), Speaker of the House of Commons and Steward of the Household of King Henry V. It finally passed down the family to Sir Edward Hungerford (1632–1711), created a Knight of the Order of the Bath at the coronation of Charles II.
Before its rebuilding, Hungerford Market was called "a disgrace to the metropolis" (Mogg’s New Picture of London and Visitor’s Guide to it Sights, 1844). Mogg further says: "The present elegant and convenient structure was erected from designs by Mr. Fowler in 1831 and 1833."
The market consisted of three divisions. The upper one formed a quadrangle, flanked by colonnades with dwellings and shops. The centre - a great hall - was formed of four rows of granite columns, with arches springing from them to support the roof. Hungerford Market specialised in food: meat, poultry, fruit, vegetables, butter and eggs.
By 1830 the replacement of Old London Bridge meant that fishing boats could then come further upstream to deliver their catch. So the owners of the market hoped to break the monopoly of Billingsgate Market by providing a more convenient supply of fish for the West End. Hence a lower quadrangle was accessible by a spacious flight of steps and contained a fish market.
Down Hungerford Stairs was a wharf, about 200 feet long with steps down to the water, where landings could be made. The formation of floating piers at the quay facilitated the arrival and departure of numerous steamboats that left during the summer months every quarter of an hour, for the City, Westminster and Vauxhall, and at other times for Greenwich and Woolwich.
During a period when Charles Dickens’s father faced financial challenges, Charles was sent to labour at Warren’s Blacking Factory situated near Hungerford Stairs. Notably, the Micawber family in Dickens’s works also temporarily resided at Hungerford Stairs before embarking on their journey to Australia. When Dickens passed away, his coffin was transported from Rochester to Charing Cross Station for the final burial at Westminster Abbey.
When the site of the market was sold to the South Eastern Railway, the railway company demolished both it and the stairs, building Charing Cross railway station over the top.
