Imagine Staples Inn
in Holborn double its present height, and with every structural
detail chiselled with patient care into intricate patterns of
fruit and foliage, and you will get some idea of a Brunswick
street. The town contained four or five splendid old churches, and
their mediaeval builders had taken advantage of the dead-flat,
featureless plain in which Brunswick stands, to erect such lofty
towers as only the architects in the Low Countries ever devised;
towers which served as landmarks for miles around, their soaring
height silhouetted against the pale northern sky. The irregular
streets and open places contained one or two gems of Renaissance
architecture, such as the stone-built Town Hall and "Guild House,"
both very similar in character to buildings of the same date in
sleepy old Flemish towns. The many gushing fountains of mediaeval
bronze and iron-work in the streets added to the extraordinary
picturesqueness of the place. It was like a scene from an opera in
real life. It always puzzled me to think how the water for these
fountains can have been provided on that dead-flat plain in pre-
steam days.
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