Originally, the local corn merchants conducted their business in the open air on Cornhill.[2] In the mid-1840s, after finding this arrangement inadequate, a group of local businessmen decided to form a private company, known as the "Lincoln Corn Exchange and Market Company", to finance and commission a corn exchange for the town.[3] The site they selected was undeveloped land to the east of the High Street.[1]
The foundation stone for the new building was laid on 1 September 1847.[4] It was designed by William Adams Nicholson[5] in the neoclassical style, built in ashlar stone by Kirk and Parry of Sleaford at a cost of £15,000 and was officially opened on 31 March 1848. Prince Albert was an early visitor to the new building in April 1849.[6]
The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing onto Cornhill. The ground floor was rusticated and the central section of three bays, which was projected forward, formed a podium containing three round headed openings supporting a tetrastyle portico with Corinthian order columns, with a large entablature and pediment above. The outer bays were fenestrated on the first floor by sash windows with cornices supported by consoles and flanked by Corinthian order pilasters.[1]
In the 1870s, civic officials decided to commission a new corn exchange, later known as the Market Hall, which was erected on the corner of Cornhill and Sincil Street and opened in December 1879.[7] Meanwhile, the old corn exchange was significantly extended to the east with a bullnose shaped extension designed by Bellamy and Hardy and converted into a shopping arcade known as the Exchange Arcade which opened in 1880.[8]
The building has been occupied by a large number of tenants since it became a shopping arcade. In the 1976, the basement area, which had originally been used as a grain store, was converted into a public house operated by Ruddles Brewery known as the Cornhill Vaults. At the east end the anchor store was occupied by the bookshop, Waterstones, from 2005 to 2021,[9] when the unit was taken over by Superdry.[10] Meanwhile, at the west end the main tenant has been Santander Bank since 2010.[11]
