June 17, 1897 celebration of Queen Victoria's Jubilee drew the largest crowd ever assembled in front of the original Town Hall,  That structure burned down a few months later on November 24th.  The new City Hall was built just a year after, completed in November 1898..  

And then, for over 50 years, Stratford Market Square became a parking lot, for buses and cars ... on Sundays, the Slow Food Market squeezed into the northern portion of the Square.