Harrowgate Corporation

The chartered town government of Harrowgate: a mayor, twelve aldermen, a clerk, four sergeants and lesser officers. It holds the Thursday market, the bridge and its tolls, the wall and gates, fairs, weights and the gaol, but its jurisdiction stops at the town wall.

The town government of Harrowgate. It pays money instead of the town's muster quota, hires armed men for market week and the fairs, and keeps the old drain and bridge piers in use without touching them.

Named with it

• Mayor Roger Aldcliffe
• Town Clerk Nathaniel Brigstock
• Clerk of the Market Edith Rawcliffe · The Harrowgate Market Book
• Bailiff of Harrowgate John Ferrensby · quoted

Ties

• administers Harrowgate Gaol
• dealt with as one of the seat's three institutions alongside Harrowgate Priory and the Harrowgate Assize
• the mayor sits beside the justice at the assize
• commutes its quota in the northern march muster
• the Collegium has twice asked it to regulate deep-ruin trade

At the table

Its one real instrument is the bridge chain: dropping it closes the March and compels attention within a day. Its market and bridge books are the only continuous quantitative record of the March and can be copied for a fee. The mayor is treated as first man of the March but can deliver nothing; the town fears the districts learning to trade round it, as fen traffic has shifted to the coast. It watches who arrives with whom, charges road families extra tolls and has tried to keep them outside the wall at fair time. It dropped its register of dealers' purchases and says it cannot regulate the deep-ruin trade, which it cannot define. It pays for escort along the northern road when it wants it.