Among the many broils that took place in Saltash between the corporation and the great body of townsmen the most serious was in 1806, when the Rev. John Buller was mayor. On this occasion the mob broke into the Guildhall, where the mayor stood to his post on the stairs, and for some time held back the crowd, dealing mighty blows with the silver-gilt mace, and cracking therewith many crowns. Finally the rioters succeeded in getting hold of the chest, and they destroyed or purloined all the documents it contained, with the object of getting rid of the evidence in favour of the corporation. At the same time they carried off the silver oar, the symbol of jurisdiction over the Hamoaze, and this was not recovered for fifty years.
The corporation maces are singularly handsome and weighty, and are of silver-gilt.
The present Guildhall is erected over the market-house, and was built in 1770. It is ugly, and has this alone to recommend it, that it is unpretentious.
On the daïs within are three handsome carved oak chairs, that for the mayor having the arms of the borough on the panel—a lion rampant within a bordure bezanted. On each side of the shield is a Prince of Wales’ ostrich plume.
A late mayor was the brother of the famous astronomer, Professor Adams.
The official costume of the mayor includes a robe of scarlet cloth trimmed with sable and a cocked hat; the justice or ex-mayor has a black mantle; and the mace-bearers have scarlet, silver-laced gowns and three-cornered hats. The maces date from 1696, and were presented by Francis Buller, Esq., and are three feet seven inches high.
Near the water, almost crushed under the mighty arch of Brunel’s viaduct, is a little old shop with the date on it of 1584, and it is one of the very few specimens of a shop of that period that remain to us absolutely untouched.
It is precisely the sort of shop “in our alley” from which Sally must have issued to meet her lover.
And verily, as I stood drawing the quaint old place, there peeped out at me an absolutely ideal Sally.
“Her father he makes cabbage nets,