The grand parish church
was much plundered at the Reformation, and left piteously bare by the
despoilers.
[Illustration: The Old Jetty, Gorleston]
The town, now incorporated with Yarmouth, has a proud boast:--
Gorleston was Gorleston ere Yarmouth begun,
And will be Gorleston when Yarmouth is done.
Another leading East Anglian port in former days was the county town
of Suffolk, Ipswich. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
ships from most of the countries of Western Europe disembarked their
cargoes on its quays--wines from Spain, timber from Norway, cloth from
Flanders, salt from France, and "mercerie" from Italy left its crowded
wharves to be offered for sale in the narrow, busy streets of the
borough. Stores of fish from Iceland, bales of wool, loads of untanned
hides, as well as the varied agricultural produce of the district,
were exposed twice in the week on the market stalls.[6] The learned
editor of the _Memorials of Old Suffolk_, who knows the old town so
well, tells us that the stalls of the numerous markets lay within a
narrow limit of space near the principal churches of the town--St.
Mary-le-Tower, St. Mildred, and St. Lawrence. The Tavern Street of
to-day was the site of the flesh market or cowerye. A narrow street
leading thence to the Tower Church was the Poultry, and Cooks' Row,
Butter Market, Cheese and Fish markets were in the vicinity.
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