But it is probable that already, in 1300, the chief of the four ancient wells from which Grantham took its supply was in the centre of the market: it may already have been roofed over, and the dyers may already have begun to spread their goods on market-days beneath the projecting eaves of the roof. At the “Angel” the traveller would be sure to find wool-merchants travelling from fair to fair, or the King’s buyers come to transact business with the rising wool-merchants of the town.[59] North of the “Angel,” the High Street was continued, under the name of Watergate, down the slope of the hill which led to the watering-place at the bridge over the Mowbeck, the little stream which, flowing down the Harlaxton valley, met the Witham below the town. Our traveller would leave this on his left: a narrow lane, now Vine Street, used till 1705 merely as a foot-path to the church, would take him to the head of Swinegate, the road along which the town swine were driven daily to spend the day on Manthorpe Moor. Here possibly markets had been held till within the last quarter of a century; and here, till 1645, stood the old Apple Cross, the High Cross of Grantham. But the space had been encroached upon by the westward extension of the church;[60] so that Grantham lost that magnificent combination of church and market-square which is the unrivalled distinction of its neighbour Newark. What the town had lost, however, the church had gained in architectural beauty; and in the year 1300 the west front, much as we now see it, had been finished, and the scaffolding was probably being removed from a spire which at that time was unsurpassed in England. The spire of the mother church of Salisbury was not to be completed for many years: the spire of Newark was not taken in hand till the second quarter of the century. More than a century later, Grantham spire would be surpassed in height and grace of proportion by the great lantern-tower at Boston: two hundred years later, the spire of Louth would challenge both. But in beauty of detail, whatever may be their advantages in design, neither Louth nor Boston can compare with Grantham; and in this respect the one steeple in England which has ever surpassed it is the “Broad” Tower of Lincoln. Yet even this was not yet completed for another ten or eleven years, so that for the moment the spire of Grantham stood without an equal.