But the case is this: the inhabitants
being all busy at their manufactures, dwell in their garrets at
their looms, and in their combing shops (so they call them),
twisting-mills, and other work-houses, almost all the works they
are employed in being done within doors. There are in this city
thirty-two parishes besides the cathedral, and a great many
meeting-houses of Dissenters of all denominations. The public
edifices are chiefly the castle, ancient and decayed, and now for
many years past made use of for a gaol. The Duke of Norfolk's
house was formerly kept well, and the gardens preserved for the
pleasure and diversion of the citizens, but since feeling too
sensibly the sinking circumstances of that once glorious family,
who were the first peers and hereditary earl-marshals of England.
The walls of this city are reckoned three miles in circumference,
taking in more ground than the City of London, but much of that
ground lying open in pasture-fields and gardens; nor does it seem
to be, like some ancient places, a decayed, declining town, and
that the walls mark out its ancient dimensions; for we do not see
room to suppose that it was ever larger or more populous than it is
now. But the walls seem to be placed as if they expected that the
city would in time increase sufficiently to fill them up with
buildings.
The cathedral of this city is a fine fabric, and the spire steeple
very high and beautiful.
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