Such a preface is needed to our sketch of this fine old ornament of the city’s market-place, lest disappointment should attend the hopes of the inquisitive investigator of sights and relics.
The guildhall, once like the municipal body it represents, was but a tiny little thing compared with what it since has grown, and when bailiffs and burgesses were the only distinctive titles and offices, a simple chamber thatched, and commonly used to collect the market dues, sufficed for the seat of civic government; but when, in the reign of the third Henry, the citizens received from him a charter for a mayor and sheriffs, they took off the thatched roof of their little toll-booth, and built upon it, and round about it, spacious rooms and courts, to accommodate and do honour to their newly acquired municipal dignitaries; for which purpose a warrant was obtained, to press all carpenters, builders, and bricklayers, into active service, from eight o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock at night, as long as occasion might require; and by such compulsory process, the design was completed some fifty years from the date of its commencement. The tower, wherein was the treasury, fell down in Bluff King Harry’s reign, whose matrimonial exploits have given him notoriety, in addition to the grand event of history, the Reformation, with which they bore so intimate a connection. Decay, renovation, change, and reformation, have been so busy with this seat of government, from the era of its infancy until the present time, that no small degree of ingenuity must be needed to unravel the twistings and turnings, and comprehend the inharmonious groupings that have sprung up about it, the divers offsprings of various ages, that mark the progress and growth of the municipal constitution.
Without doubt, the first claim to antiquity is justly assigned to the lower dungeons and cells, some of which still serve as _lock ups_ for offenders awaiting magisterial examination; and a remarkably unpleasant situation must the individual find himself in, who is there for ever so brief a space in “durance vile;” the convicted transgressor certainly makes an exchange for the better, when he reaches his ultimate destination, the city prison cell; dark, damp, underground coal-cellars, may be deemed _fair_ illustrations of the accommodation there offered to those whom the “_law deems innocent_”, as it professes to do all unconvicted persons. One degree darker, and more horrible, are the _dungeons_, which receive no light whatever, save from a jet of gas without the gratings of the doors; into these refractory guests are stowed, that their rebellious sounds may not disturb the ears of any passers-by above ground.