is a spacious building, unequalled in point of ornamental decoration by any similar structure in the kingdom. It not only gives a most prominent feature to the area in front of the county hall, but is a general and interesting object of attraction to strangers.

Market House

The principal front is to the west, over the portal of which are the arms of Queen Elizabeth in high relief, and the date 1596. On each side of this portal is an open arcade, consisting of three round arches, which form the main building; above these is a series of square mullioned windows, surmounted by a rich fanciful parapet consisting of curved embrasures, which rise at certain distances into a kind of pinnacle.

Above the northern arch is the following inscription, having on one side the arms of France and England quarterly, and on the other those of the town:—

The xv^th day of June was this building begun,
William Jones and Thomas Charlton, Gent. then
Bailiffs, and was erected and covered in their time.
1595.

Immediately over this is a tabernacled niche, containing a fine statue of Richard Duke of York, in complete armour; one hand is supported on his breast, and the other pointing below to a device of three roses carved on a stalk. A tablet corresponding with the town arms, finely sculptured in relief, on the left hand of the figure, records its removal from the tower on the Welsh bridge, in 1791. In the same situation on the corresponding end of the hall is the figure of an angel in a canopied niche, bearing a shield of the arms of France and England quarterly. This originally stood within the chamber of the Gate Tower at the Castle Gates, from whence it was preserved when the remaining portion of that ancient barrier gave way to modern houses in 1825.

The basement of the Market House is 105 feet long by 24 feet wide, and is used on Saturdays as the corn-market; at other times it forms an useful promenade, especially in wet weather.

The inscription on the north end has often excited surprise, how so large and ornamental a building could have been completed within a period of less than four months. The nature of the case would seem, that the stone-work and timber-framing had perhaps previously been wrought, so that no time might be lost, and the utmost endeavours used, in the re-edification of a building which was almost indispensible at that period,—when corn was for the most part brought to market in the bulk, and not sold by sample as in the present day. This conjecture is somewhat confirmed by the following extract from a manuscript chronicle in the possession of the writer:—

“1595. In the month of January this year the old building in the Corn Market Place was agreed to be taken down, and the timber-work thereof was sold, and another with all speed was to be erected with stone and timber in the same place, and a sumptuous hall aloft, with a spacious market house below for corn was begun, the foundation and fencing whereof was a quarter of a year before it was finished, and the stone work was begun upon the 15th day of June following, and was finished and almost covered in before the bailiffs of the said year went out of their office the Michaelmas following.”