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Booming expansion led the Duke of Devonshire and the townspeople to lobby for borough status, finally granted by royal charter in June 1883.

Two of the girls have come down from the bridge and are inspecting the ruined south-west towers.

Middleham is famous for its racehorses, and this photograph of the Low Moor shows a string of horses ridden by flat-capped jockeys walking in a wide circle with the trainer supervising in the middle.

The Market House was built of granite in 1839-40 for the sale of meat, poultry and butter, and the four carved ox heads above the pillars (left) are a notable feature of the street frontage.

A well-laden coach and four arrive in the town, making its way towards the seafront and main hotels.

Harrogate had become a fashionable town noted for its fine shops and rich teas.

It pumped sea water, which was used both in local water carts for street cleaning, and for flushing out the town's sewerage system.

Much of the employment in Victorian Cheltenham had been directly related to the activities of a spa town, with a large proportion of the working population being domestic servants or employed in hotels

Timber, stone, corn and malt were transported from here to London by river. Its 18th-century economy depended on the coaching trade; further expansion followed the dawning of the railway age.

The thatch to the right has gone, and so has the church spire; it has a square tower today. Beer had a substantial reputation as a smugglers' base in years gone by.

The tile-hung building to the right of the Square has woodwork elaborately carved with figures, fruit and mythical animals. Constructed as the Court House in 1881, it became a bank, then the library.

The Town Hall was designed in 1855 by the Bath architect Thomas Fuller – he later emigrated to Canada.

It is now home of the main county offices, replacing the ancient capital, Cardigan, and the more recent administrative centre, Aberystwyth.

Behind on the left is a house called Belle Vue, later Whitcliffe Grange, now demolished and replaced by council houses. Beyond is Westfields, one of the town's three medieval open fields.

Mentioned in the Domesday Book and briefly a spa town in the 17th century, Wellingborough was granted market rights by King John in 1201. Cromwell stayed here en route to Naseby during the Civil War.

Northern Shropshire is famous for its cheeses and dairy products, hence the market (or Buttercross) in the picture, which was built in 1824.

Many towns had open-air pools, though few now survive. They went out of fashion; many were closed on health and safety grounds.

Southgate is the only surviving gate of the three that used to give access to the old walled town.

Southgate is the only surviving gate of the three that used to give access to the old walled town.

The bridge joining Wroxham to the west and Hoveton to the east was declared unsafe in the 1960s.

The Market Square is at the busy cross-roads in the centre of this delightful small town.

It looks quiet here now, but once the market at Leominster was so successful that the cities of Hereford and Worcester were jealous of its success.

Newark owes much of its development to the fact that Henry I gave Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, permission to divert the route of the Fosse Way through the town.

John Ruskin praised this old market town fulsomely, saying it had moorland, sweet river, and English forest at their best. Markets have been held here since medieval times.