River Improvement 145 



their houses in the autumn for the winter months, during 

 which the roads would be impassable and food supplies from 

 outside unobtainable. 



The trading conditions of the period are shown by the 

 accounts of the once-famous cloth market of Leeds given, 

 in his " Ducatus Leodiensis ; or the Topography of Leedes," 

 by Ralph Thoresby (1715), and, also, in his " Tour," by the 

 ever-picturesque Defoe. 



Thoresby, who speaks of " the cloathing trade " as being 

 " now the very life of these parts," tells us that the Leeds 

 cloth-market was held on the bridge over the Aire every 

 Tuesday and Saturday down to June 14, 1684, when, for 

 greater convenience, it was removed to Briggate, the " spacious 

 street " leading from the bridge into the town. Already, in 

 Thoresby's day, Leeds was the manufacturing capital of the 

 district, and he speaks of its cloth-market as " the life not 

 of the town only but of these parts of England." 



Defoe, in his account of the market, describes it as " in- 

 deed a Prodigy of its kind, and not to be equalled in the 

 world." He tells how, making their way to Leeds at an 

 early hour in the morning from the surrounding district, 

 the " clothiers," each bringing, as a rule, only a single piece 

 of cloth, assembled at the various inns, and there remained 

 until the ringing of a bell, at seven o'clock in the summer, 

 or a little later in the winter, announced that trestles, 

 with boards across them for the display of the cloth, had 

 been duly fixed in the roadway, and that the market had 

 opened. Thereupon the clothiers, without rush or haste, 

 and in the most solemn fashion, would leave their inns, and 

 step across the footpath to the " stalls " in the roadway. 

 Standing quite close to one another, they then put down 

 their cloth on the boards, which would soon be completely 

 covered with rolls of cloth arranged side by side. While the 

 clothiers were so engaged, the merchants would have left 

 their houses, entered the market, and begun their inspection 

 of the goods displayed for sale, so that within fifteen minutes 

 of the ringing of the bell the market would be in full opera- 

 tion. When a merchant saw a piece of cloth which suited 

 his requirements he would lean across the boards, and whisper 

 in the ear of the clothier the price he was prepared to give, 

 this practice of whispering being adopted in order that the 



