In 1853 Nottingham was described as the principal seat and emporium of the lace and hosiery manufactures. It is an ancient, populous and well-built market and borough town, as well as being the capital of the shire and archdeaconry to which it gives its name. It is in the diocese of Lincoln, and in the midland circuit of England. It occupies a picturesque situation on a sandy rock, which rises in broken declivities, and in some places in precipitous, above the north bank of the little River Leen which, at a short distance to the south-east, falls into the River Trent, near the opposite locks of the Grantham and Nottingham canals, and a little below that magnificent and noble structure, the Trent bridge, which is connected to Nottingham by a flood road, raised at great expense above the intervening meadows, which are often subject to inundation.