present head master is the Rev. Dr. Malkin, well known to the literary world, by several publications of considerable merit.

This town also contains three charity schools. In one of these forty boys, and in the two others, fifty girls, are clothed and instructed in the English language. Besides collections and occasional gifts, there is a settled fund of 701. per annum towards defraying the expenses of these establishments. In addition to these institutions, a school on the plan of Mr. Lancaster was opened in September 1811, in College street, and about 200 poor boys were admitted into it.

The Theatre, was built in 1780, on the site of the old market eross, from a design by Mr. Robert Adam, and is a beautiful speeimen of his taste and architectural skill. It is of white brick, but the ornamental parts are of free-stone. As it stands detached from other buildings, the elegance of its construction may be contemplated to great advantage. George, the second earl of Bristol, gave 500l. towards the erection of this theatre, and 4001. towards the finishing of the shambles, which stand in the same square, opposite to that edifice, and are built of free-stone.

On the Hog Hill, or Beast Market, stands the common Bridewell, formerly a Jewish synagogue, which in old writings is called Moyse Hall. Its dimensions are thirty-six feet, by twentyseven. The walls are of great solidity, faced with stone, and the whole is built upon arches. The circular windows bespeak the high antiquity of this structure, which is conjectured to be of not much later date than the conquest, soon after which, the Jews settled in this place. As all their synagogues were ordered to be destroyed, during the reign of Edward III. it cannot but be esteemed the greater rarity.

At the upper side of the market are the Wool Halls, where great quantities of wool used to be annually deposited, when that article was the principal source of employment of the poorer inhabitants of Bury, and its vicinity.

In Church-gate street, is a meeting house for the Dissenters, and in Whiting street another for Independents. The Quakers have a neat place of worship in the Long Brakeland.

At the south side of the open place, known by the name of the Angel Hill, stand the Assembly Rooms, a newly erected edifice of simple exterior. The ball room is well proportioned, seventysix feet in length, forty-five in breadth, and twenty-nine feet high. Adjoining to it is an apartment used as a card and supperroom, thirty-seven feet by twenty-four; and the building likewise contains a subscription news-room. The three balls held annually, during the great fair in October, are in general attended by great numbers of persons of the first rank and fashion, as are also the four or five winter balls; but trades-people, however respectable and opulent, are rigorously excluded. It has been universally remarked, that there is not perhaps a town in the kingdom where the pride of birth, even though conjoined with poverty, is so tenaciously and so ridiculously maintained as at Bury.

The Suffolk Public Library, formed by the union of two libraries, the one instituted in 1790, and the other in 1795, is situated in Abbey-gate street. It is not confined to the class which commonly constitutes the stock of a circulating library, but embraces many works of first-rate importance and utility. The number of subscribers is about one hundred and fifty, and the sum expended annually in new publications, amounts to about 1201.

The Angel Inn, one of the most conspicuous buildings in the town, stands on the west side of the Angel Hill. The vaults underneath it are supposed from their construction to have formerly belonged to the abbey, and appear to have once had a subterraneous communication with that establishment. This inn was given, with some small tenements and pieces of ground, by William Tassell, esq. partly towards the maintenance of the ministers, and partly for the repair of the churches, and the ease of the inhabitants.

At the end of Southgate street, a mile from the centre of the town, is situated the new Gaol, which, to use the words of the benevolent

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nevolent Mr. Nield, " does honour to the county, and is superior to most in this kingdom; whether we consider its construction to answer the three great purposes of security, health and morals, or the liberality of the magistrates in providing every comfort which can attend imprisonment."* This gaol which has a neat stone front, wrought in rustić, was completed in 1805. The buildings are inclosed by a boundary wall, twenty feet high, of an irregular octagon form, the diameter being two hundred and ninety-two feet. Four of the sides are one hundred and ninetytwo feet each, and the other four seventy feet and a half. The entrance is the turnkey's lodge, on the lead flat of which execu tions are performed. The keeper's house, also an irregular octagon building, is situated in the centre of the prison, raised six steps above the level of the other buildings, and so placed that all the court-yards as well as the entrance to the gaol are under constant inspection. The prison consists of four wings sixty-nine feet by thirty-two; three of these are divided by a partition wall along the centre, and the fourth is parted into three divisions; by which means the different classes of prisoners are cut off from all communication with each other. The chapel is in the centre of the keeper's house, up one pair of stairs; stone galleries lead to it from the several wings, and it is partitioned off, so that each class is separated the same as in the prison.

The House of Correction, nearly adjoining to the gaol, has by recent regulations, been in some measure consolidated with that establishment. It is bounded by a separate wall, inclosing about an acre of ground, and the prison stands in the centre. This is a square building, having the keeper's house in front, and contains two divisions, which, with the nine in the gaol, make eleven in all. These are appropriated according to the following arrangement: 1, and 2. Male debtors. 3. King's evidence, and occasionally other prisoners. 4. Convicted of misdemeanors. 5. Transports and convicted of atrocious felonies. 6. For trial for atro

cious felonies. 7. For trial for small offences. 8. Female debtors, 9. Female felons for trial, 10. Females convicted of misdemeanors. 11. Females convicted of felonies,

The rules and regulations for the government of these prisons are truly excellent. The earnings of the prisoners employed by the county are thus divided: two-fifths to the county, one-fifth to the governor, and two-fifths to the prisoner, one to be paid weekly, and the remainder on discharge. Their occupations are grinding corn, for which there are two mills, and spinning wool. The keeper of the gaol and house of correction has a salary of three hundred pounds per annum, besides perquisites and fees, * and they have a chaplain and a surgeon, with a yearly salary of sixty pounds each.

Within the bounds of Bury, a very elegant seat was built in 1773, from a plan of Mr. Adam, by John Symonds, LL. D. professor of modern history and languages, in the university of Cambridge, who gave it the appellation of St. Edmund's Hill, from the beautiful eminence on which it stands. Few spots in Suffolk, observes Mr. Gough,† command so extensive and pleasing a prospect.

A little to the southward of the town, a brick edifice, with two small detached buildings has been erected since the commencement of the present war, as a magazine for arms and ammunition. The necessity of such an establishment at Bury, where no troops are stationed, and where no apprehension certainly need be entertained of any sudden surprise, may justly be questioned. The truth seems to be, that the corporation of Bury wanted a place for one of their number, and in humble imitation of another assembly, recommended

* It would be an injustice to a deserving individual, not to quote the character given of the present keeper, Mr. John Orridge, by Mr. Nield, who says: " in the appointment of a gaoler, I consider the county particularly fortunate in their choice of Mr. Orridge; who, to great abilities, unites firm ness and humanity in the discharge of his important trust." † Camden, Vol. IL. 161.

recommended this measure, that he might be gratified with the sinecure office of store-keeper.

The town had five gates till about forty years ago, when they were all taken down by order of the corporation, to afford a more convenient passage for carriages; and at each of these gates there was formerly either an hospital or some religious foundation, or both, as at East, South, and Risby gates. Beyond the North gate, on the east side, and contiguous to the Thetford road, are the ruins of St. Saviour's Hospital, the most celebrated in Bury, and which must have been a very extensive building, if, as we are told, the parliament assembled here in 1446. The entrance seems to have been originally adorned with a stately portal; the space for the entrance, with the fragments of a large window above it, yet remain. Part of the wall which surrounded the hospital and its appurtenances, is also still standing.

The arches in the east wall of the monastery, described by Grose,* as well as the East gate itself, are now demolished. These arches were of considerable antiquity, being evidently as old as the wall itself, which was erected before 1221, by abbot Sampson, to inclose a piece of ground which he had purchased there for a vineyard. The use of them was to serve as a water-course, and perhaps to form an occasional foot-bridge, by means of planks laid from one projecting buttress to another, there being an arched passage left between them and the wall, to the west of which was another bridge for foot-passengers. Not far from the east gate stood St. Nicholas' hospital, some remains of which, such as the original entrance, and one window at present filled up on the north side, are yet to be seen. The edifice itself is now converted into a farm-house; and at a small distance to the west stands the old chapel, formerly belonging to the hospital, an extensive building, having seven buttresses on each side, but not remarkable either for beauty or elegance, now transformed into a barn and stable. On the north side of the road, between Eastbridge