The Gainsborough was a two storey building erected in the Market Place, a little to the east of the spot on which the present Market House stands. It comprised an upper room, where the justices met both for business and also for pleasant carousing. Beneath the balcony which projected from this chamber on the southern side were some shops, let off to shoemakers, and there was a dungeon below the ground. A servant of Sir Edward Hastings, who was interned there in Queen Mary's reign, expressed his feelings thus:— "Immediately as we were come to Leycetter Master Mayor sent me forthwith to a most vile prison called Gaynsborrow, and then offered to put gyves and fetters upon my legs, and so to lye upon hard planks without bed or straw and without company or comfort."
In 1575 the Deputy Receiver of the Duchy of Lancaster contributed 33s. 6d. "towards the reparacions of Gainsborough Chamber." The Town Chamberlains' Accounts contain several references to meetings held there, such as the following:— "Sheriffs and Justices in Geynsborow chambre," and "Sir Edward Hastings and other of the Justices in Gaynesborowe Chambre sittinge there with Mr. Mayor uppon the Councill's Lettres aboute corne." In 1566 the Mayor made an appointment to meet strangers there, and in 1588 the Chamberlains paid 9 shillings "for a weynescott cheyre remeyninge in Gaynesburye chamber for the Mayor to sytt in by the fyer."
Standing as it did in the most frequented open space of the town, the Gainsborough was far more in evidence than the Town Hall, and even than the High Cross, so that it became a favourite place for demonstrations of all kinds. Thus, a certain Isabel Slater, who had been convicted by the Magistrates, was condemned (inter alia) to be carted about the town in a white sheet and after that to stand up "openly in the open market before the chamber called the Gainsborough Chamber in a white sheet by the space of one hour, between the hours of xi and xii of the clock." When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, her death was proclaimed both at the High Cross and at the Gainsborough. The accessions of Charles I. and Charles II. were also proclaimed at the same places. The building suffered during the tumults
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