Then you proceed
to the citty which is walled round full of towers,
except on the river side which serves for the wall; they
seeme the best repaire of any walled citty I know, tho'
in some places there are little breaches, but the
carving and battlements and towers looks well; I enter'd
the West gate, there are twelve gates in all and
thirty-six churches which is to be seen in a clear day
altogether, on the castle walls I told thirty myself;
there they are built all of flints well headed or cut
which makes them look blackish and shineing; the
streetes are all well pitch'd with small stones and very
clean and many very broad streetes; that I entred in
first was very broad for two coaches or carts to pass on
either side and in the middle was a great well house
with a wheele to wind up the water for the good of the
publick; a little farther is a large pond walled up with
brick a mans height with an entrance on one end, a
little farther was a building on which they were at work
design'd for a water house to supply the town by pipes
into their house with water, at a little distance was
another such pond walled in, as I described before;
these things fill up the middle of this spacious streete
which is for use and also ornament, the spaces each side
being so broad; this brings you into a broad space
called the Hay market which is on a hill a very steep
descent all well pitch'd as before, this comes to
another space for a market to sell hoggs in and opens
farther into divisions of buildings that begins severall
streetes that runs off good lengths and are of
tollerable size; one runs along behind, which is all for
stalls for the country butchers that bring their meate
for the supply of the town, which pay such a rent for
them to the town, on the other side are houses of the
town butchers, the inhabitants, by it is a large market
for fish which are all at a little distance from the
heart of the citty so is not annoy'd with them, there is
a very large market place and hall and cross for fruite
and little things every day, and also a place under
pillars for the corn market . . . On the castle hill
you see the whole citty at once, being built around it,
its a vast place and takes up a large tract of ground
its six miles compass; here is the county hall and goale
where the asizes are held and the sessions; nothing of
the castle remains but a green space and under it is
also a large space for the beast market and three tymes
in the year is there very great faires kept, to which
resort a vaste concourse of people and wares a full
trade; the whole citty lookes like what it is, a rich
thriveing industrious place; Satturday is their great
market day; they have beside the town hall a hall
distinct which is the sealeing hall where their stuffs
are measured, and if they hold their breadth and lengths
they are sealed, but if they are deffective there is a
fine layd on the owner and a private marke on the stuff
which shews its defficiency. |