“1595. In the month of January this year the old building in the Corn Market Place was agreed to be taken down, and the timber-work thereof was sold, and another with all speed was to be erected with stone and timber in the same place, and a sumptuous hall aloft, with a spacious market house below for corn was begun, the foundation and fencing whereof was a quarter of a year before it was finished, and the stone work was begun upon the 15th day of June following, and was finished and almost covered in before the bailiffs of the said year went out of their office the Michaelmas following.” THE BRIDGES. Two handsome stone bridges cross the river Severn nearly in a parallel direction. These were preceded by very ancient structures, defended by embattled towers, and were excellent specimens of the fortified bridges necessary in former times for the protection of the town. Being extremely narrow and dilapidated, they were taken down in the last century; a brief notice, therefore, of their ancient state will be sufficient. THE OLD WELSH BRIDGE was considered as the chief architectural ornament of the town, consisting of seven arches, and situated a few yards higher up the stream than the present structure. Its gates and towers at each end were of the finest kind of castellated building, being richly decorated with shields and sculpture; and their demolition is much to be regretted. Above one of the gates stood the armed statue of a knight, which was removed in 1791, and placed in a niche on the front of the Market House. This effigy was an important object of attraction to the Welshmen in passing through the gate, from a tradition retained by them even to modern times, that it represented Llewelyn Prince of Wales, or David, the last of the British Princes, whom Roger Coke facetiously calls “King Taffy,” but which recent antiquaries have, from its attendant embellishments, more properly assigned to Richard Duke of York, father of Edward IV. THE OLD EAST OR STONE BRIDGE consisted rather of two bridges (being divided by an island of 118 feet broad), extending 864 feet in length, and comprising seventeen arches. The thoroughfare over it in the widest part was only twelve feet, being impeded by a range of thirty-three houses disposed on each side, after the manner of London Bridge in former times. The further bridge from the town had eleven arches, and was properly denominated: “THE ABBEY BRIDGE” for it extended to the precinct of the monastery, and passed over none of the water of the Severn except in times of flood, receiving only a small portion of a rivulet called Meole Brook, the channel of which is still visible in the meadows opposite the Council House. The narrow state of this bridge having been long matter of complaint and inconvenience, a subscription was commenced in 1765 to widen it, towards which Sir John Astley, Bart. gave £1000.