The Little Red Book of Bristol recorded the Corporations rules and regulations, as well as those of the guilds. This extract is about the weights and measures used throughout the city. As today, any merchant or shopkeeper would have the equivalent of a set of scales for measuring out goods. The Bristol Corporation held a set of official measures, and used them to check all other measures at least twice a year. Anyone using an unchecked measure would be fined, and anyone cheating customers by using a large measure for buying and a small one for selling would be imprisoned.

The bushel and gallon were the biggest of a series of measures for dry goods and liquids. A bushel measure held about 15kg, a gallon measure about 4 1/2 litres.