Moore Market, the red Indo-Saracenic bazaar beside Madras Central, was opened by Governor Sir Arthur Havelock in November 1900 and gutted by fire in 1985. For most of the twentieth century it was where the city went for second-hand books, gramophone records, birds, toys and odd antiques. The site is now the Moore Market Complex suburban railway terminal, from which EMU and MEMU trains leave for Gummidipoondi and Sullurpeta, according to a Southern Railway timetable notice.
The market’s 125th anniversary fell in 2025, and it still comes up whenever Chennai argues about fire-damaged heritage. Here is what it was, how it was lost, and where traces of it survive.
Why Madras built a new market
By the 1890s the city’s old central market, Popham’s on Broadway, had been condemned as unsanitary. The Corporation decided to build a modern covered market next to the railway terminus, historian Sriram V writes. Popham’s was pulled down and its site became Loane’s Square, now Sriramulu Park.
The new market was named after Lt Col Sir George Moore, President of the Madras Corporation from 1886 to 1902, who laid the foundation stone in August 1898. Moore, knighted in 1887, was also the first president of the South Indian Athletic Association (Sriram V).
The building in numbers
| Detail | Figure |
|---|---|
| Foundation stone | August 1898 |
| Opened | November 1900 |
| Cost | 26,000 pounds |
| Site | 350 ft by 240 ft |
| Stalls at opening | 291 |
| Fire | 1985 |
It was designed by R.E. Ellis of the Corporation in the Indo-Saracenic style and built by the contractor A. Subramania Aiyar, says Madras Musings. The plan was a rectangle of arcaded shops around an open central garden, with an outer verandah of arches and hawkers’ stalls on the east and north. There were separate sections for vegetables, meat, fish, poultry, flowers and provisions.
From vegetables to books and records
Over the decades the produce trade drifted elsewhere and the market reinvented itself. It became known for second-hand and rare books, old gramophone records, pets, toys, clothes and curios. Generations of students bought textbooks there cheaply, and collectors hunted for first editions and 78 rpm discs.
The decline started early. Sriram V points out that a Tamil novel set in the 1920s and 1930s already shows the market as chaotic, and a 1962 magazine piece described it as crowded and unruly. By the 1980s, his January 2026 column notes, 572 stalls paid about Rs 150 a month in rent and around 300 smaller traders paid Rs 30, with almost no maintenance, unauthorised hawkers and pickpockets.
The 1985 fire
The railways had wanted the land beside Central for years, and the traders were refusing to move. Then, in 1985, the market burned. Heritage writers have long called the fire mysterious but convenient. The ruin was not restored. The land went to the railways, traders received compensation and alternative space, and the site became the suburban terminal, which Madras Musings dismissed as a tasteless high-rise.
Moore Market is often listed alongside other lost fire-damaged buildings such as Spencer’s and Gandhi Illam, and it is the example heritage groups cite when arguing that Chepauk Palace’s Khalsa Mahal should be, and was, restored rather than pulled down after its 2012 fire.
What remains
- The replica: a scaled-down model of the old market stands on the lawn in front of the terminal. It has been poorly maintained.
- The Lily Pond complex: traders were moved to a new building on reclaimed land from the filled-in Lily Pond nearby. It never caught on, and many shops have closed, Madras Musings notes.
- The name: it lives on in the station, Moore Market Complex, used daily by thousands of commuters to the northern suburbs.
The loss still shapes how the city treats old public buildings. Heritage campaigners argue that a covered market with a central courtyard could have been repaired and reused, perhaps as the suburban station’s concourse, as Sriram V has suggested, and that the decision to clear it set a pattern later repeated with other fire-damaged landmarks. Others point to the pressure on Central for platform space in the 1980s, when suburban traffic to the northern suburbs was growing fast.
If you go to look, the replica is visible from the terminal forecourt, and the Lily Pond shops are a short walk away. Central’s main concourse and the Ripon Building are next door for a quick heritage loop.
Quick answers
When did Moore Market burn down?
In 1985. The site was later handed to the railways.
Who was Moore Market named after?
Sir George Moore, President of the Madras Corporation from 1886 to 1902, who laid the foundation stone in 1898.
What stands on the site now?
The Moore Market Complex suburban railway terminal next to Chennai Central.
Can I still buy second-hand books there?
A few traders survive in the Lily Pond complex nearby, but most of the old trade has dispersed.
Information checked against official sources on 18 October 2026. Fees, dates and rules can change; confirm on the linked official pages before acting.
Sources
- Madras landmarks: Moore Market (Madras Musings)
- Moore of Moore Market (Sriram V, Aug 2012)
- A market that refuses to fade: the two faces of Chennai’s Moore Market (Sriram V, Dec 2025)
- Moore Market: 125 years of life, 40 years after death (Sriram V, Jan 2026)
- Press release: revised timings of MEMU and EMU trains from 17 Dec 2024 (Southern Railway)
