Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722

keepers, the quantity of which is very great, it is the farmers’

fees, and makes them full amends for the trampling, riding, and

carting upon, and hardening the ground.

It is impossible to describe all the parts and circumstances of

this fair exactly; the shops are placed in rows like streets,

whereof one is called Cheapside; and here, as in several other

streets, are all sorts of trades, who sell by retail, and who come

principally from London with their goods; scarce any trades are

omitted – goldsmiths, toyshops, brasiers, turners, milliners,

haberdashers, hatters, mercers, drapers, pewterers, china-

warehouses, and in a word all trades that can be named in London;

with coffee-houses, taverns, brandy-shops, and eating-houses,

innumerable, and all in tents, and booths, as above.

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. This especially respects those people, who

deal in heavy goods, as wholesale grocers, salters, brasiers, iron-

merchants, wine-merchants, and the like; but does not exclude the

dealers in woollen manufactures, and especially in mercery goods of

all sorts, the dealers in which generally manage their business in

this manner.

Here are clothiers from Halifax, Leeds, Wakefield and Huddersfield

in Yorkshire, and from Rochdale, Bury, etc., in Lancashire, with

vast quantities of Yorkshire cloths, kerseys, pennistons, cottons,

etc., with all sorts of Manchester ware, fustiains, and things made

of cotton wool; of which the quantity is so great, that they told

me there were near a thousand horse-packs of such goods from that

side of the country, and these took up a side and half of the

Duddery at least; also a part of a street of booths were taken up

with upholsterer’s ware, such as tickings, sackings, kidderminster

stuffs, blankets, rugs, quilts, etc.

In the Duddery I saw one warehouse, or booth with six apartments in

it, all belonging to a dealer in Norwich stuffs only, and who, they

said, had there above twenty thousand pounds value in those goods,

and no other.

Western goods had their share here also, and several booths were

filled as full with serges, duroys, druggets, shalloons,

cantaloons, Devonshire kerseys, etc., from Exeter, Taunton,

Bristol, and other parts west, and some from London also.

But all this is still outdone at least in show, by two articles,

which are the peculiars of this fair, and do not begin till the

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *