This great street reaches from the road, which as I said goes from
Cambridge to Newmarket, turning short out of it to the right
towards the river, and holds in a line near half a mile quite down
to the river-side: in another street parallel with the road are
like rows of booths, but larger, and more intermingled with
wholesale dealers; and one side, passing out of this last street to
the left hand, is a formal great square, formed by the largest
booths, built in that form, and which they call the Duddery; whence
the name is derived, and what its signification is, I could never
yet learn, though I made all possible search into it. The area of
this square is about 80 to 100 yards, where the dealers have room
before every booth to take down, and open their packs, and to bring
in waggons to load and unload.
This place is separated, and peculiar to the wholesale dealers in
the woollen manufacture. Here the booths or tents are of a vast
extent, have different apartments, and the quantities of goods they
bring are so great, that the insides of them look like another
Blackwell Hall, being as vast warehouses piled up with goods to the
top. In this Duddery, as I have been informed, there have been
sold one hundred thousand pounds worth of woollen manufactures in
less than a week's time, besides the prodigious trade carried on
here, by wholesale men, from London, and all parts of England, who
transact their business wholly in their pocket-books, and meeting
their chapmen from all parts, make up their accounts, receive money
chiefly in bills, and take orders: These they say exceed by far
the sales of goods actually brought to the fair, and delivered in
kind; it being frequent for the London wholesale men to carry back
orders from their dealers for ten thousand pounds' worth of goods a
man, and some much more.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133