James John Hissey's visit 

Past half-timbered homes of ancient date, and prosperous-looking rick-surrounded farmsteads, whose windows gleamed in the golden light; past old windmills, whose great sails stood out like gigantic outstretched arms darkly silhouetted against the luminous sky; past red-roofed cottages, fragrant with the smell of burning wood, our way led us, till just as the light was fading from land and sky we reached the little town of Hadleigh, and pulled up there before the hospitable door of the ancient and one-time famous White Lion.

Our hostel proved to be a delightful example of the old-fashioned English inn, and the worthy landlord (who told us that he had been there for over twenty-four years) was an example of "mine host" - civil, obliging, good-natured and chatty.  Upon entering this ancient inn we were delightfully surprised to find ourselves in a glass-roofed courtyard with galleries running around covered with clematis, and here and there with flowers and ferns in pots.  Not always does it fall to the lot of the weary traveller to come upon such a pleasant, homely hostel at the end of his day's pilgrimage.  In this courtyard, in former times, we were told that the Mystery Plays were performed before large audiences gathered from far and near.  At the back of our inn we discovered in the morning a pleasant garden and bowling-green, in which we smoked our after-breakfast pipe and glanced at our guide-book to see what it had to say respecting Hadleigh.  We found that it was very full of the past history of the place down to the times of the Szons, but of the information generally desired by the traveller it contained very little, and some even of that little we afterwards discovered to be wrong.

A charming little countrified town is Hadleigh, full of interesting old houses, many bearing plain evidence of past prosperity, for long years ago Hadleigh was an important seat of the woollen trade.  Early in the fourteenth century a large body of Flemings settled here, and to this day the names of the villages around, such as Jersey, Lindsey, bear testimony to the former extent of its manufacturing interests by the terms, still retained, that they gave to special products of the loom.  And these old Hadleigh merchants built for themselves enduring homes, beautified them with carvings, adorned their fronts with graceful or quaint devices and many a painted legend.  They built for permanency in those times, not for a temporary resting place; they sought for beauty too, as well as permanency, cared for it, expected it, obtained it; and though the ancient town has lost its former prosperity, and seems to have fallen into a deep sleep never to awaken more, the quaint and picturesque houses still stand, though, alas! some have been more or less damaged by time and others ruined beyond recall by being refronted with little or no feeling for the work of the past.

Yes, in truth a pleasant little town is Hadleigh.  I know not a more attractive one, possessing as it does a delightful air of mellowness and old-time calm, so grateful and rare in this busy money-making age.  A town it is that has felt less than most such places the levelling influence of nineteenth-century progress, with all its ugliness and slavish uniformity.  It is unspoilt by villas, terraces, or residences eligibly situated (with every modern convenience, but inconvenient withal) and shops of stucco and plate-glass are agreeably "conspicuous by the absence", neither has it any scattered outskirts invading the pleasant green fields around.   A more charming town to ramble in there could not be; it is full of interest, and abounds in pictures offering a wealth of subjects for the painter or etcher.

A Tour in a Phaeton Through the Eastern Counties (published in 1889)

James John Hissey was an Artist, Photographer, and Author. Between 1884 and 1917 he wrote a number of book listed below on his travels around the UK. The first few were using a horse and "Dog Cart" but the later ones were using some of the first generation of motor vehicles.