Interestingly, he has added a footnote to this paragraph : "This circumstance, though recorded by Dr Pochin, Mr Webster informs me, is doubtful." Unfortunately, Nichols is not clear on what is doubtful, and ambiguity remains. Is it doubtful that The Cabin Lees existed, or was it built for another purpose? Slack¹⁸ refers to cabins (hovels) being built on the outskirts of Liverpool for the specific purpose of housing the infected. "A bylaw of 1540 in Liverpool similarly ordered that those visited with pestilence should 'depart out of their houses and make their cabins on the heath' in summer; in winter they should stay at home and 'keep their doors and windows shut'". Similar quarantine measures were undertaken in Nottingham, Durham, Shrewsbury, York, Windsor and Berwick. Possibly, Loughborough built its own isolation camp on the outskirts of the town.

There is further evidence to suggest that Loughborough was occasionally put into quarantine by local towns. During June 1610, the Rector of Loughborough wrote the following letter to the Mayor of Leicester:¹⁹

"Sir, I understand from a neighbour of mine that it is your desire that I should give warning to my neighbours to keep them from coming to your town of Leicester for the time of the Assizes; with their desire I will by God's help accordingly fulfil only I desire to know whether the restraint must be so general as none of the towns for any cause may come hither with certificate as formally they have done. I desire to be informed in law upon an arbitrement which we will put off until some other time if you think that your coming will be offensive to any one. And so thanking you for your care and kindness towards my neighbours in this time of visitation I rest. Your loving friend in Christ assured, John Brown."

In 1631, a further outbreak, although not so severe, (and the last major epidemic) caused such concern that the Parson of Loughborough, John Browne (successor and namesake of the John Brown who wrote the 1610 letter), wrote to the Mayor of Leicester :

"These are to certify whom it may concern that the shattered town of Loughborough is not so dangerous as by some may be considered; in as much as there are but only three houses visited by the Plague: being all of them small tenements, and being in a back lane or place far remote from our market-place or any common passage, being inhabited by poor people: all attended upon; as well for relief of the visited as for prevention of danger. And there are dead of the sickness as is supposed only eleven p'sons in all men, women and children, in the space of seven weeks since first the infection began."

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