The only things sold in Nottingham's Old Market Square today are food and drink and arts and crafts. But rewind the clock 250 years and a man could sell... his wife.
As absurd as it seems today, it used to be a way of ending an unhappy marriage before divorce became a common practice. There's two records of wife-selling in the city.
A 17-year-old and her two children were put up for sale in the market place in 1779 - a busy location ensured a large crowd. The woman and her children sold for 27/6 according to local historian John Holland Walker, who wrote about it in An itinerary of Nottingham: The Market Place in 1931.
