Located on the River Avon, close to the royal forest of Pewsham, the settlement of Chippenham dates from at least the ninth century, and was the scene of a famous peace treaty between the Saxons and Danes in 879. In the early Stuart period the town was noted for its corn market, though its prosperity depended primarily on the manufacture of broadcloth. There were at least 94 households in 1604, and Chippenham was substantial enough to host quarter sessions in its town hall. J.J. Daniell, Hist. Chippenham, 4, 20, 29, 66-7, 69, 90-1; Recs. of Chippenham Bor. ed. F.H.

West Looe was known originally as Porthbyhan (‘little cove’ in Cornish), and a corrupted version of this name, Portpighan, still appeared on the borough’s election indentures in the early seventeenth century as part of its official title. A settlement existed on the west bank of the Looe by 1243, when it received its first charter. Along with the adjacent manor of Portlooe, the borough was absorbed into the duchy of Cornwall in 1540. T. Bond, E. and W. Looe, 50, 57; R. Pearse, Ports and Harbours of Cornw.

Situated near the centre of Pembrokeshire, at the head of the Cleddau estuary and with roadways emanating from it in every direction, Haverfordwest was easily the most prosperous and populous town in the county. Its thriving Saturday market was reputed to be the best in all Wales for fish, and the town carried on a flourishing coastal trade with several English ports along the Severn, chief among which was Bristol, whose clothiers relied heavily on woollen shipments from the Milford Haven area.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century Pembrokeshire’s boroughs were, with the exception of prosperous Haverfordwest, in an advanced state of economic decay. Pembroke was in places ‘very ruinous’ and severely depopulated, John Speed recording in 1611 that it had ‘more houses without inhabitants than I saw in any one city’. Though nominally the shire town, it had long since been eclipsed by Haverfordwest as the county’s administrative centre.

Situated at the confluence of the rivers Tame and Anker, Tamworth was a Saxon foundation once favoured as a residence by the monarchs of Mercia. It was fairly small, even by early modern standards: by 1640 around 300 households clustered around its privately owned castle.C.F. Palmer, Hist. Tamworth, app. p. xxvii. Little is known of its economy, but by 1589 several inhabitants had erected corn mills to compete with those already there belonging to the queen. H. Wood, Tamworth Bor. Recs.

Cardigan was founded as a Norman military centre, occupying a strategic position on the banks of the Teifi where the river flows into the Irish Sea. In the 1240s and 1250s, following a turbulent period when the borough became a battleground between Welsh and English interests, it acquired a wall and an impressive castle. In 1279 Edward I made Cardigan the political and administrative capital of Ceredigion, and gave it a charter of incorporation in 1284 modelled on that of Carmarthen.R.A. Griffiths, ‘The Making of Medieval Cardigan’, Ceredigion, xi.

Described in 1635 as a ‘pleasant and sweet little city … in a pleasant, fertile level and not far from the main sea’, Chichester, situated in the extreme west of Sussex, had a population of about 2,500.‘Relation of a Short Survey of the Western Counties’ ed. L.G. Wickham Legg Cam. Misc. xvi. (Cam. Soc. ser. 3. lii), pt. 3, pp. 33, 35; A.

Situated on the River Idle in the north-eastern Nottinghamshire hundred of Bassetlaw, 32 miles from Nottingham, East Retford was an important market town and administrative centre, whose suburbs stretched into the neighbouring parishes of West Retford, Clarborough and Ordsall, though these lay outside the corporation’s jurisdiction.

Throughout the medieval period Tiverton was an insignificant settlement, which lay in the shadow of a castle held by the earls of Devon, and possessed only minimal privileges. It was not until the Courtenay family lost most of their power and lands in the mid-sixteenth century that the town escaped this seigneurial stranglehold, and began to achieve economic growth and political independence. J. Youings, ‘King James’s Charter to Tiverton’ (Reps. and Trans. Devon Assoc. xcix), 147-56; W.H. Hoskins, Devon, 495; M. Dunsford, Hist. Mems.

The county town of Buckinghamshire from at least the time of the Conquest, Buckingham declined sharply during the medieval period, partly because of its inconvenient location to the north of the shire but also because of the decay of the Norman castle.D.J. Elliott, Buckingham, 4-14; VCH Bucks. iii.