Which a very great quantity
is continually shipped off for London; and sometimes they load corn
here for Holland, especially if the market abroad is encouraging.
They have twelve parish churches in this town, with three or four
meetings; but there are not so many Quakers here as at Colchester,
and no Anabaptists or Antipoedo Baptists, that I could hear of--at
least, there is no meeting-house of that denomination. There is
one meeting-house for the Presbyterians, one for the Independents
and one for the Quakers; the first is as large and as fine a
building of that kind as most on this side of England, and the
inside the best finished of any I have seen, London not excepted;
that for the Independents is a handsome new-built building, but not
so gay or so large as the other.
There is a great deal of very good company in this town, and though
there are not so many of the gentry here as at Bury, yet there are
more here than in any other town in the county; and I observed
particularly that the company you meet with here are generally
persons well informed of the world, and who have something very
solid and entertaining in their society. This may happen, perhaps,
by their frequent conversing with those who have been abroad, and
by their having a remnant of gentlemen and masters of ships among
them who have seen more of the world than the people of an inland
town are likely to have seen. I take this town to be one of the
most agreeable places in England for families who have lived well,
but may have suffered in our late calamities of stocks and bubbles,
to retreat to, where they may live within their own compass; and
several things indeed recommend it to such:-
1. Good houses at very easy rents.
2. An airy, clean, and well-governed town.
3. Very agreeable and improving company almost of every kind.
4. A wonderful plenty of all manner of provisions, whether flesh
or fish, and very good of the kind.
5. Those provisions very cheap, so that a family may live cheaper
here than in any town in England of its bigness within such a small
distance from London.
6. Easy passage to London, either by land or water, the coach
going through to London in a day.
The Lord Viscount Hereford has a very fine seat and park in this
town; the house indeed is old built, but very commodious; it is
called Christ Church, having been, as it is said, a priory or
religious house in former times. The green and park is a great
addition to the pleasantness of this town, the inhabitants being
allowed to divert themselves there with walking, bowling, etc.
