The municipality is very ancient and still retains some quaint
customs. Not that, however, of the medieval fee for admission to the
corporation consisting of two greyhounds, two white capons, and a
white bull! The last item must have given the aspirant for civic
honour much wearisome searching of farmyards before he found the
acceptable colour. Like so many of the old towns through which we have
wandered, Marlborough has suffered from fire; one in the middle of the
seventeenth century was of particular fury, for, with the exception of
the beautiful old gabled houses on the higher side of the sloping main
street, the town was then practically destroyed. "Two hundred and
fifty dwellings and Saint Mary's church are gone, and over three
hundred families forced to crave the hospitality of the neighbouring
farmers and gentry, or wander about the fields vainly looking for
shelter. Every barn and beast-house filled to overflowing."
The tradesmen of High Street say that theirs is the widest street in
England. This may be so. It is undoubtedly one of the most pleasant
and picturesque, and "the great houses supported on pillars," to which
Pepys refers in his Diary, still remain on the north side.
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