By the early seventeenth century Grimsby, long in decline as a port, had been eclipsed by Hull, across the Humber, in both commercial and political importance. Gervase Holles†, who was born in the town in 1607, observed that ‘the haven hath been heretofore commodious, [but] now decayed; the traffic good, now gone’. He described Grimsby as ‘mean and straggling by reason of depopulation, and the town very poor’.G. Holles, Lincs. Church Notes (Lincoln Rec. Soc.
Of the three coastal boroughs of Suffolk, only Aldeburgh retained any economic significance in the seventeenth century. Coastal erosion, which had swept away the greater part of Dunwich and blocked access to Orford, left it open to the sea with deep water at hand. Ships of 200 tons and upwards were built, a fishing fleet of 50 or 60 sail was dispatched every year to Icelandic waters and the Westmann Isles, and the port claimed a share in the Newcastle coal trade. CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 530, 532; APC, 1627, p. 2; HMC Var. iv. 290.
The larger of the twin settlements at the mouth of the Looe, East Looe existed as a market town and port by the late thirteenth century, and was accounted sufficiently important in 1341 to send a representative, jointly with Fowey, to an assembly at Westminster. T. Bond, E. and W. Looe, 1-2, 6. In the early seventeenth century the local merchants traded with France, the Low Countries and the Iberian peninsula, but they could no longer compete with their rivals at Fowey in terms of the volume of traffic.
Founded in Saxon times at the head of the Taw estuary, Barnstaple developed into north Devon’s principal town, and indeed the county’s third richest urban community after Exeter and Plymouth. Although its medieval walls had crumbled by the early seventeenth century, the contemporary historian Thomas Risdon described it as ‘fair built, and populous withal, … pleasantly and sweetly situate[d] …; whose streets, in whatsoever weather, are clean and fairly paved’. In 1634, the population was estimated to be almost 8,000. W.G. Hoskins, Devon, 327-8; T.
Aldborough enjoyed its heyday as the residence of Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes, and then as a Roman town, but declined after the main bridge over the river Ure was re-sited a mile upstream, at Boroughbridge, in the twelfth century.
Lying on the Hampshire coast opposite the Isle of Wight and almost surrounded by the New Forest, Lymington was known chiefly for its salterns, which in this period supplied nearly all the west of England. R. Warner, Colls. for Hist. of Hants, iv. 16. Although granted a seigneurial charter before 1216, the borough was never incorporated, and first sent Members to Parliament in 1584. It was governed by a mayor, who was assisted by a town clerk, serjeant, and recorder. VCH Hants, iv.
Situated on the western side of the Isle of Sheppey, Queenborough was named after Philippa of Hainault, Edward III’s consort, and received its first charter in 1368, which entrusted its government to a mayor, two bailiffs, and an unspecified number of freemen. M. Weinbaum, English Bor. Charters 1307-1660, p. 63; C. Eveleigh Woodruff, ‘Notes on the Municipal Recs. of Queenborough’, Arch. Cant. xxii. 172. It owed this privilege to its castle, which however failed to generate any significant urban growth.
Described by Camden as ‘a very fair market town, large and pretty populous, surrounded with a great number of pleasant meadows and pastures’,Bucks. Misc. ed. R. Gibbs, 145-6. Aylesbury, by the later Middle Ages, had usurped Buckingham as the centre of county administration in Buckinghamshire; the assizes, gaol, and county elections were all relocated to the town, which was conveniently situated in the middle of the county.Lipscomb, Bucks. ii. 27-8; VCH Bucks. iii. 1-11; iv.
Situated at the confluence of the rivers Thet and Little Ouse, and straddling the Norfolk/Suffolk border, Thetford existed as a market town before Roman times, when it was known as Sitomagus. During the early Middle Ages it flourished, but by the late sixteenth century, having ceased to be an important staging post, it was chronically poor and ‘ruinated’, its income barely exceeding £60 p.a. F. Blomefield, Hist. Thetford, 2, 61; F. Blomefield, Hist. Norf. 42-3; Norf. RO, T/C1/3, p.
Sandwich was a chartered borough before Domesday. The easternmost of the Cinque Ports, its limbs included Deal, Fordwich, Ramsgate and even Brightlingsea in Essex. Its harbour decayed in Tudor times because of the growth of a sandbank across the entrance, preventing the entry of all but the smallest ships. Boys, 684. During the early seventeenth century the borough frequently lobbied for a new haven to be built, but the estimated cost – more than £50,000 – was prohibitive. E. Kent Archives Cent. Sa/AC7, f.
