| Description | It was ordered that for ornament and for securing the City from fire all houses to be erected in Foregate street, Eastgate street, Northgate street, Watergate street, and Bridge street should be covered with slate or tile and not thatched. The owners of existing houses which were thatched were to slate or tile them before the following feast of All Saints. This order was to be published throughout the City by the Bellman.
It was ordered that, for the preservation of the City stock, no sum exceeding 40s. should be disbursed on any account unless an order of Assembly had been first obtained, neither for the repair of the walls, the gates nor the highways. Nevertheless liberty was given to the Treasurers to advance £30 for the speedy repair of the Eastgate, and care was to be taken that this sum should be repaid to the Treasury.
It was ordered that gunpowder should not be kept in shops or cellars nor in any place except the uppermost rooms of the houses where it was kept.
The Muragers or the Treasurers were given liberty to dig stone for the City's use between Goblins tower and the Northgate.
Nathaniel Basnett, apothecary, petitioned that the fine or a considerable part of the fine imposed on him for refusing to be one of the Common Council might be remitted. (ZA/B/2/171) Upon reading his petition and also a letter on his behalf from the Earl of Derby, it was agreed that his fine should be abated to £20.
It was ordered that Puleston Partington, watchmaker, Matthew Ellis, upholsterer, and Thomas Freeman, periwig-maker, should be admitted to the freedom provided that each paid £10 before a fortnight on the following Saturday; and that John Gwynn, buttonmaker, should be admitted if he paid £5 before that day.
The accounts of the public assessment monies collected within the City in the years 1664-68 inclusive were examined; from which it appeared that £158; 18s: was received more that was paid to the Receiver General. Out of this sum and otherwise there had been disbursed £140: 2s: 4d for exhibition monies for the King's Bench prisoners in 1668, £99: 16s: 2d for procuring an abatement of the arrears of the said assessments in 1669, £40 to Mr Ratcliffe, one of the burgesses for the City serving in Parliament, in part of a greater sum due to him, and £13 towards the payment of former assessments. These disbursements, amounting to £193: 18s: 6d, would have been raised and paid by way of other assessments on the City, had they not been paid in this way. Therefore £35: 0s: 6d had been disbursed more than had been collected by public assessments. |