Haverhill, Essex

Description
Haverhill, an ancient market-town and parish, head of a county court district and polling-place, and a seat of petty sessions, in Suffolk and Essex. The town stands on a head-stream of the river Stour, 1 3/4 mile E from the boundary with Cambridgeshire, and 13 1/2 miles NW from Halstead; consists chiefly of one street nearly a mile long, partly in Suffolk, partly in Essex, was once a more important place than now, and had a castle of the Greys of Codnor. It is governed by a local board of nine members, and has a station on the branch of the G.E.R., from Cambridge to Sndbnry and Bury St Edmunds, and also on the junction of the Colne Valley line to Marks Toy. It has a head post office, two banks, a weekly market which is held on Friday, a well-attended weekly stock sale, and a very large manufactory of textile fabrics which gives employment to upwards of 2500 persons. There are a corn exchange and court-room, erected in 1857, a town-hall which was presented to the town by Mr Daniel Gurteen in 1883, and a lecture-hall and reading-room, erected in 1891, by Mr W. B. Gurteen. The church is a large building of flint and rubble in the Late Perpendicular style, and there are Baptist, Congregational, and Primitive Methodist chapels. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Ely; net yearly value, £130 with residence. Patron, Sir George R. Beaumont. The parish, comprises 2532 acres, of which 2528 are in Suffolk, and 4 in Essex. Population, 4587-4560 in Suffolk and 27 in Essex; population of the ecclesiastical parish, 4104 in Suffolk and 61 in Essex. Nathaniel Ward, a celebrated Puritan, who drew up the first code of laws for Massachusetts, was a native.