You can see
part of the house of this worthy, who died in 1519. Fuller stated in
the seventeenth century that this brick and timber residence had been
converted into sixteen clothiers' houses. It is now partly occupied by
the Jack of Newbury Inn. A fifteenth-century gable with an oriel
window and carved barge-board still remains, and you can see a massive
stone chimney-piece in one of the original chambers where Jack used to
sit and receive his friends. Some carvings also have been discovered
in an old house showing what is thought to be a carved portrait of the
clothier. It bears the initials J.W., and another panel has a raised
shield suspended by strap and buckle with a monogram I.S., presumably
John Smallwoode. He was married twice, and the portrait busts on each
side are supposed to represent his two wives. Another carving
represents the Blessed Trinity under the figure of a single head with
three faces within a wreath of oak-leaves with floriated
spandrels.[44] We should like to pursue the subject of these Newbury
clothiers and see Thomas Dolman's house, which is so fine and large
and cost so much money that his workpeople used to sing a doggerel
ditty:--
Lord have mercy upon us miserable sinners,
Thomas Dolman has built a new house and turned away all his spinners.
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