“The said Northwich is a Burrow and holden of the Earle of Chester by the service of twelve armed men to serve at the Watergate in Chester in the time of wars betwixt England and Wales. There is, in the same towne or Burrow, one hundred and thirteen salt houses, every one containing four leads apeece, and one odd lead and one four leads which was given to the Earl of Derby by the Burgesses, occupiers of the said Town, for the portion of his house, and no land in the Town for it, and every four leads must have in provision of wood, nine quarters and so rateable, whether it be four leads or six leads, so that there is spent in wood in the said town 1026 quarters and a peece after the rate of five score to the hundred and after the rate of forty shillings per Quarter comes to £2056. 10. Spent in the wich houses yearly in wood, £5219. 14.” The particulars which are given of the salt manufacture in the Wiches in 1605 and 1607 by George Johnson’s correspondent and by Camden, are repeated with only the slightest variation half a century later in King’s _Vale Royal_. But in the latter account we are able to glean a little more information about the towns themselves. Concerning Northwich, we are told that it had the mischance to be burnt in July, Anno 1438, and was “most part miserably consumed with fire,” in December, 1583. “But through the Benevolence gathered throughout the Realm, it is new builded, and is in as good case or rather better than before.” The town in 1656 was divided into two parts, one of which was called the Cross, while a “very fair church of stone,” called Northwich Church, stood “without the Town’s-end.” But although it was called Northwich Church, we are told that it was only a chapel and its proper name was Witton; a combination of coincidences which caused the chronicler to conclude “that the town was named first Northwich, after the finding of the salt.” Of Nantwich, we are only informed that the town was visited in 1617 by the gracious King’s Most Excellent Majestie, who, with his own eyes beheld the manner of the brine well and the labours of the drawers of brine--who, in the course of their work, “spend the coldest day in frost and snow, without any clothing more than a shirt with great cheerfulnesse”--and “with his own hand most princely rewarded them.” Middlewich is described by the same authority as no market town: “yet may it pass amongst them, as well for the bigness thereof, as also it hath Burgesses and other privileges, as the other wiches have, yet it hath a small market of flesh and other things every Saturday, and yearly two fairs: that is to say on Ascension Day and St. Luke’s Day. It hath divers streets and lanes, as King Street, Kinderton Street, Wich House Street, Lewis Street, Wheelock Street: Pepper Lane: Cow Lane and Dog Lane. But the chiefest place of all is a broad place in the middest of the Town, in manner of