Note 473 — Chapter VIII

In 1273 Henry de Tracy held the borough from the King in chief at a ferm of about £5 14s. 2d. There were 36 tenants whose rent amounted to 23s. 8d. and some tenants in a suburb who paid an uncertain rent, but generally about 6s. 8d. A market was held every Friday which yielded in tolls to the lord about £3 a year, and a yearly fair gave 10s. Fines, reliefs, &c., came to about 13s. 4d. a year. The wealth of the town increased after the building of the “Long Bridge” in 1280 over “the great hugy, mighty, perylous, and dreadful water named Taw,” and the increase of the cloth trade about 1321. Towards the close of the fourteenth century the legacies and accounts show that the burghers were laying up considerable wealth and doing a thriving trade. Hence probably the dispute as to the claim to profits. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 206-213. See also case of Bridgewater, ibid. iii. 310-14.