The manufactures of the place are at the present time, as they always have been, very varied; and prominent among them is that of woollen goods, which are of a great and ancient celebrity, for the Flemings obtained long wool, spun in the village of Worsted, nine miles away, and of this made that peculiar cloth. This kind of yarn thus took the name of _worsted_, and is so known to this day. It is said that there are 1400 looms working in this city and the neighborhood. The city has a business-like appearance, and a commanding look in its main thoroughfares. It is well built of brick and stone, and everywhere, at intervals, there are the evidences of age, in the old stone churches, of which there are more than forty in the city,--some of them very venerable, and built of split cobble-flintstone, and many of them of great antiquity. The city has a noble feudal relic in the shape of a castle founded by Uffa in 575. It was extended and improved by Anna in 642, and again in 872 by Alfred the Great, or more than 1,000 years ago; and now still stands, grand and imposing, at the centre of the city, on a quite lofty eminence with precipitous sides, and is surrounded by its massive wall and donjon tower, but has been in modern times altered on the interior, to fit it for its present use as a jail. Another part is remodelled for use as the shire hall. The bishop's palace and the deanery are imposing structures, old and interesting, and approached, as the cathedral itself is, through what is called the Eppingham Gate, a remarkable structure consisting of a lofty pointed arch, flanked with semi-octagonal buttresses, and enriched with columns, mouldings, and 38 male and female statues in canopied niches. The market-place is large, and ranks as one of the finest in the world. The city was formerly surrounded by walls; fragments of them still remain, but most have been removed and the material used for more useful purposes. It was provided with numerous watch-towers, and was entered by 12 gates. Owing to the quantity of ground used, just out of the centre of the city, for gardens and orchards, as the place is approached by rail it presents a very rural appearance; and being built mostly on a hillside, and quite steep in parts, it strongly resembles its namesake in our Connecticut, and it covers a much larger space, or territory, than any other English place of a like population. Not a few of the streets are narrow and winding, and many of the houses that line such are antique with overhanging stories, and presenting long rows of gables; they are, however, generally of brick, and more interesting for their antiquity than for any merits of architecture.