We shall now proceed to describe the parishes and parish churches, in four districts, west, east, north, and south. WESTERN DISTRICT. The western district is the most prominent, comprising the Market Place, the parishes of St. Peter at Mancroft, St. Giles, St. Gregory, St. John’s Maddermarket, St. Andrew, St. Margaret, St. Benedict, St. Swithin, and St. Lawrence. Nearly all the public buildings are situated in this part of the town—the Guildhall, the Corn Hall, the Post Office, the Museum, the Free Library and School of Art, the Public Library, and the Literary Institution. The Market Place is about 200 yards in length, and 110 in breadth, but part of that area is occupied by the Guildhall, and St. Peter’s church. A handsome bronze statue of the Duke of Wellington, 8 ft 6 in. high, was erected, at a cost of £1000, in the middle of the Market Place in 1854. This statue is placed on a granite pedestal, surrounded by a low railing with lamps at the corners. The new Fish Market is on the western side of the Market Place. It consists of two rows of shops with an open space between, and was built, a few years ago, at a cost of £6000. On Saturdays the Market Place presents a highly animated scene, and is well supplied with provisions of every kind. It is generally crowded from morning till night by the citizens, and by the vendors of the produce of the field, the garden, or the dairy. It is surrounded by handsome shops, warehouses, hotels, and taverns. _St. Peter of Mancroft_. This parish was, at the beginning of the Confessor’s reign, an open field, that part of it which is now the Market Place, being the great croft of the Castle or Magna Crofta. Towards the end of the Confessor’s reign it began to be built over and inhabited; and at the survey of 1086, the whole field was owned and held by Ralf de Guader, Earl of Norfolk, in right of his castle, who granted it to the King in Common to make a new burgh between them, which burgh contained the entire parishes of St. Peter of Mancroft and St. Giles. The Earl Ralf founded the church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Mancroft, and gave it to his chaplains. On his forfeiture, Robert Blund, the Sheriff, received an ounce of gold, yearly, from the chaplains; and on Godric’s becoming sheriff, the Conqueror gave it to Wala his chaplain, at which time it was worth £3 per annum. Sir Peter Read, though not certainly known to be a native of this city, yet deserves to be mentioned here, because he was buried in St. Peter’s Church, having this inscription on his monument:— “Hereunder lieth the corps of Peter Read, Esq., who hath worthily served not only his prince and country, but also the Emperor Charles the Fifth, both at his Conquest of Barbary, and his siege of Tunis, as also in other places, who had given him, by the said Emperor, the Order of Barbary, who died on the 29th December, in the year of our Lord God 1566.”