" The running streams had now disappeared both here and at
Salisbury, but we could quite understand why one was so much better than
the other, as the water running through Salisbury was practically on the
level, while that at Honiton ran down the hill and had ample fall.
Lancashire ideas of manufacturing led us to expect to find a number of
factories at Honiton where the lace was made for which the town was so
famous, but we found it was all being worked by hand by women and girls,
and in private houses. We were privileged to see some very beautiful
patterns that were being worked to adorn fashionable ladies in London
and elsewhere. The industry was supposed to have been introduced here
originally by Flemish refugees in the fifteenth century, and had been
patronised by Royalty since the marriage of Queen Charlotte in 1761, who
on that occasion wore a Honiton lace dress, every flower on which was
copied from nature. We were informed by a man who was standing near the
"Dolphin Inn," where we called for tea, that the lace trade was "a
bigger business before the Bank broke," but he could not tell us what
bank it was or when it "broke," so we concluded it must have been a
local financial disaster that happened a long time ago.
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