During the civil wars and under the rule of the Commonwealth the inhabitants of the town were too heavily burdened with taxes for the maintenance of soldiers and for the repairs of the walls (for which the companies were severally assessed) to have much wealth to expend on revelry and merry-making, even had Puritan sourness admitted any such. But the reaction consequent on the Restoration brought back the glory to Shrewsbury. The agriculture of the district had now quite recovered from the long-distant Welsh ravages: the internal trade of the town was also very considerable. Shrewsbury was therefore a place of no small importance. It played the part of a local metropolis in which the fashions of the capital were mimicked by the wealthy tradesfolk, their wives and daughters, and the country gentry and their families. For neither class could often go to London. Travelling was a serious affair not lightly to be undertaken. Consequently, just as the country gentleman now spends a portion of the year in London, so his ancestor in the seventeenth century made the adjacent county town his residence at certain seasons. Besides "he was often attracted thither by business and pleasure, by assizes, quarter sessions, elections, musters of militia, festivals and races.... There were the markets at which the corn, the cattle, the wool, and the hops of the surrounding country were exposed for sale.... There were the shops at which the best families of the neighbourhood bought grocery and millinery[199]." In Shrewsbury did the provincial beaux and belles promenade by the side of the Severn and in the abbey gardens. These latter were especially attractive. They were laid out "with gravell walks set full of all sorts of greens--orange and Lemmon trees.... Out of this went another garden much larger with severall fine grass walks kept exactly cut and roled for company to walk in: every Wednesday most of y{e} town y{e} Ladies and Gentlemen walk there as in St James's Parke, and there are abundance of people of quality lives in Shrewsbury[200]."