cars by feeling the vibration of the walls when you are standing on the level of the street or on the parapet.  You will not therefore be surprised to find ominous cracks in the old walls, and the roof is none too safe, the large span having tried severely the strength of the old oak beams.  It is a very ancient building, the crypt under the east end, vaulted in brickwork, probably dating from the thirteenth century, while the main building was erected in the fifteenth century.  The walls are well built, three feet in thickness, and constructed of uncut flints; the east end is enriched with diaper-work in chequers of stone and knapped flint.  Some new buildings have been added on the south side within the last century.  There is a clock turret at the east end, erected in 1850 at the cost of the then Mayor.  Evidently the roof was giving the citizens anxiety at that time, as the good donor presented the clock tower on condition that the roof of the council chamber should be repaired.  This famous old building has witnessed many strange scenes, such as the burning of old dames who were supposed to be witches, the execution of criminals and conspirators, the savage conflicts of citizens and soldiers in days of rioting and unrest.  These good citizens of Norwich used to add considerably to the excitement of the place by their turbulence and eagerness for fighting.  The crypt of the Town Hall is just old enough to have heard of the burning of the cathedral and monastery by the citizens in 1272, and to have seen the ringleaders executed.  Often was there fighting in the city, and this same old building witnessed in 1549 a great riot, chiefly directed against the religious reforms and change of worship introduced by the first Prayer Book of Edward VI.  It was rather amusing to see Parker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, addressing the rioters from a platform, under which stood the spearmen of Kett, the leader of the riot, who took delight in pricking the feet of the orator with their spears as he poured forth his impassioned eloquence.  In an important city like Norwich the guild hall has played an important part in the making of England, and is worthy in its old age of the tenderest and most reverent treatment, and even of the removal from its proximity of the objectionable electric tram-cars.

As we are at Norwich it would be well to visit another old house, which though not a municipal building, is a unique specimen of the domestic architecture of a Norwich citizen in days when, as Dr. Jessop remarks, “there was no coal to burn in the grate, no gas to enlighten the darkness of the night, no potatoes to eat, no tea to drink, and when men believed that the sun moved round the earth once in 365 days, and would have been ready to burn the culprit who should dare to maintain the contrary.”  It is called Strangers’ Hall, a most interesting medieval mansion which had never ceased to be an inhabited house for at least 500 years, till it was purchased