514 ON THE PRICE OF BUILDING MATERIALS. 



before the Barons of the Exchequer, sitting in Serjeants' Inn, 

 and the Fellows sent their Sub-warden to London to defend 

 the cause. It was not heard, because ' the Lord Treasurer, our 

 Chancellor (the Earl of Dorset), could not come.' So the case 

 was still pending. Meanwhile the register mentions with 

 satisfaction that the College received 13 6s. 6d. from the 

 city as costs in their first action at Nisi Prius. 



In the month of April, 1608, the case of the mill is on again. 

 The citizens sued we are told in equity, and the Court referred 

 the case to the///.r commune, the Exchequer Chamber to state 

 a case. Nothing more is said about the matter, and we may 

 conclude that the city was advised to drop the action, or 

 found that their position was hopeless. The College had no 

 doubt relieved more than its own tenants, and the rest of the 

 towns-people took their wheat where they pleased. The city 

 ceased to buy millstones, for their accounts are henceforward 

 silent on this subject. But what I have gleaned shows that 

 the price of first class millstones was still rising. 



I may mention here, in connection with the price of stone 

 and other building materials, that when at the beginning of the 

 year 1609 Merton College determined to build a new quad- 

 rangle, they made a contract with the mason, John Ackroyd 

 of Halifax, for the building for ^57 an< ^ n ^ s expenses; with 

 the carpenter, Thomas Holt, for 430 and his expenses ; rented 

 a quarry at Headington from Mr. Brome at .15 a year, and 

 agreed to hire the royal woods of Stow and Shotover for 

 timber. It is clear then that the contractors agreed to find 

 masons and carpenters for the work, and that the College 

 found stone, lime, and timber. But I have discovered no 

 bills of these particulars in the College records. 



LlME. The record of the price of lime is more intelligible 

 and more manageable than that of stone, though it is still 

 puzzling, not only from the different measures used, but by 

 reason of distance from limestone and chalk, or nearness 

 to it. 



Lime is generally bought at Cambridge by the load or 



