by Baron Ilbert de Lacy, whose possessions stretched halfway
across Yorkshire. He built a castle at Leeds, which was afterwards a
prison of Richard II., but has long since disappeared. In 1530, Leland
described Leeds as "a pretty market-town, as large as Bradford, but not
so quick as it." Charles I. incorporated it, and the cloth-market was
then of some importance. In the Civil War it was taken by the Royalists,
and afterwards retaken by Fairfax for the Parliament in a short, sharp
struggle, in which a clergyman named Scholfield distinguished himself by
his valor, and "by his triumphant psalm-singing" as work after work was
captured from the enemy. Flemish workmen brought cloth-making into this
part of Yorkshire as early as the reign of Edward III., and two
centuries ago the cloth-makers prospered so much that they held a market
twice a week at Leeds on a long, narrow bridge crossing the Aire. They
laid their cloth on the battlements of the bridge and on benches below,
and the country clothiers could buy for four cents from the innkeepers
"a pot of ale, a noggin of porridge, and a trencher of boiled or roast
beef." This substantial supply was known as the "brigg (bridge)-shot,"
and from the bridge ran the street known as the Briggate, which has
since developed into one of the finest avenues of the city.

[Illustration: ST JOHN'S CHURCH]

Leeds began to grow in the last century, when it became the chief mart
of the woollen clothiers, while the worsted-trade gathered about
Bradford. These still remain the centres of the two great divisions of
the woollen industry, which is the characteristic business of Yorkshire.
The factories began then to appear at Leeds, and in the present century
the city has made astonishing advances, growing from fifty-three
thousand population in 1801 until it exceeds three hundred thousand now.
The great cloth-mart to-day is for miles a region of tall chimneys and
barrack-like edifices, within which steadily roars machinery that
represents some of the most ingenious skill of the human race. Within
this hive of busy industry there still linger some memorials of the past
among its hundreds of cloth-mills. Turning out of the broad Briggate
into the quiet street of St. John, we come to the church built there by
the piety of the wealthy clothier John Harrison, and consecrated in
1634. St. John's Church, which he built and presented to the town
because the older parish church could scarce hold half the