Part 12

He seemed satisfied with the correction. I found that there were several persons waiting to be conducted, and that our guide was a “character.” He was deaf, his speech was indistinct from the loss of teeth, and he in every respect came up to the requisite qualification of being decayed.

The original foundation was for the board and lodging of thirteen men, poor and infirm, and for receiving daily at dinner a hundred men[99]--the most indigent that could be found--who were to be allowed to carry away the remains of their food and beer.

“Walk this way,” said our guide, hobbling on in front of us. “Oh! I won’t go too fast for you.”

He led us into the church, where we gazed up at rows of Norman zig-zag until we felt quite giddy. Some think the painting here a little overdone, but it gives some idea of how the severity of the Norman style was softened by colours. A few traces of the old designs are still visible in some places on the walls, and in À Becket’s Chapel there are remains of a series depicting the scenes in his life. There is also a large fresco, even more faded, representing the Descent from the Cross.

“We have heard,” said an inquiring lady, who seemed to take a great interest in everything, “that there is a beautiful triple arch here. Can we see it?”

“No, ma’am, you cannot,” replied our scrupulous guide; “but you will be able to do so when we come to it. This is Major Lowth’s seat,” he added, pointing to one comfortably cushioned.

“Who is he?” inquired the lady. “Where do you say he sits?”

“Nowhere, ma’am. He does not sit anywhere now. He is gone to heaven, ma’am--at least, I hope so. He was one of the trustees.”

We found the triple arch outside at the back of the church. It was very pretty--one arch bisecting another.

The fourteenth-century stained glass in the windows particularly attracted my attention. In one, St. Swithun appears in a purple robe; in another, De Blois figures in red and green. In the South Chapel there is some wood carving of the Italian school, and very fine; and some other that is certainly of the British school, and not admirable--names cut on the desks, one of which dated 1575, shows that chanting and mischievous habits survived the Reformation.

Our attention was also drawn to the stone with the half-obliterated “Have Mynde” on it, and to the window whence the sick witnessed the elevation of the Host.

[Sidenote: Handsome Donation.]

We observed on some of the tiles on the floor of the church the enigmatical letters, “Z. O.” On inquiry, we found this apparently cabalistic sign, was in memory of the munificence of an anonymous benefactor, who thus signed his letters. About twenty-five years ago a gentleman came to visit the hospital, and seeing some men at work in the church, observed to them that it was a most interesting building.

“Yes, sir,” replied one of them; “but it is sadly out of repair.”

Shortly afterwards a letter arrived from the Isle of Wight, telling the Master to go to a certain bank in Winchester, and he would receive £500 from Z. O. And soon £250 came in the same way. Many were the surmises as to who was the mysterious donor; some thought from certain indications that he was one of the royal family.

“We want a few more of that sort,” observed our guide, significantly.

The church, which is partly paved with fifteenth-century tiles, contains many sepulchral memorials. There is a fine brass to the left of the altar to Campeden, one of the masters and a friend of Wykeham’s. The tomb of Petrus de Sancta Maria, who died in 1295, was opened some time since, and the features were found perfect; but as has happened in other cases, crumbled into dust in sight of those present. Wood says there was an old cross here, dated 1450, to John Newles, “squyer and servant more than xxx yere unto Harry Beauford, bishop and cardinal, whose soulys God convey to his Mother dere unto the bliss of Heaven.”

In front of the altar there is a large slab to William Lewis. He was elected from Hart Hall at Oxford to the Society of Oriel, in 1608, and made provost by the favour of Welshmen. There are conflicting statements about his character. Cromwell’s party say that his amours were so extraordinary that he was obliged to fly from the country to escape the officers of justice; but the Royalists maintain that he was an excellent man, learned in theology, who went abroad to serve the King. Anthony Wood, in his “Fasti Oxonienses,” says that “he was made a D.D. by command of the King.” He went as Buckingham’s chaplain--with a sinecure office, I should think--to the siege of Rochelle, of which he wrote an account. He was Master of St. Cross; but on the defeat of Charles was succeeded by Lisle the regicide, who sat in the Long Parliament for Winchester.

Lisle’s widow was beheaded in the Market Place in Winchester, for harbouring fugitives from Sedgemoor.[100] After his promotion to the Upper House, another regicide, Cooke, became Master, and after his execution, Lewis returned and ended his life here in peace.

[Sidenote: Hall of St. Cross.]

Our guide now directed us to the hall--built in 1440--and here called attention to the Minstrels’ Gallery, the fine original roof, the mysterious triptych painting, and the central hearth whence in olden times the smoke ascended through a hole in the roof. This aperture was long preserved, and on “gaudy days”--of which there are five in the year--a charcoal fire is still lit there for “Auld Lang Syne.” On those days there is a grand roast of half an ox, minus the leg, and each man has five pounds of meat, a mince-pie, and plum pudding.

“And who sits in that chair?” asked the inquiring lady, indicating the principal one at the table.

“Nobody, ma’am,” he replied, “at present. But on gaudy days the Master sits in it.”

“Is he one of the brethren?”

“God bless your soul, no, ma’am,” he returned; “he’s a minister of the gospel.”

We were shown Cardinal Beaufort’s rude wooden salt-cellars and candlesticks, and in the kitchen his battered round pewter dish, which gave us no great idea of his splendour; but probably he was doing the humble when he stayed here.

Thence we went over to the eastern side of the quadrangle, where there is a cloister supporting some decayed apartments--perhaps erected by De Blois. Here is a table of Purbeck marble, said to have been used in the Castle, and which as it is not round enough for King Arthur, is usually attributed to King Stephen.

“Would you like to see the nunnery?” inquired our guide.

We were not aware that there was one, but found that it consisted of some upper rooms for three nurses. On asking what there was to see in it, and being told, “Well! there is a floor,” none of us felt very enthusiastic about it. And so I left this interesting spot--not to return for fifteen years. Farewell, most conscientious of guides! I am afraid, alas! that thou art “not sitting anywhere now.” I hope thou too art in heaven.

On this, my next visit, our conductor was a man of the modern school, intelligent and energetic, but not so humorous. I went the same round, and heard little more--except that an American gentleman, who had been two months in England studying stained glass, had heard of the ancient windows here just as he was going on board the steamer to return, had retraced his steps, and said when he saw them that he was well repaid for his journey. Our guide also spoke of the silver cross the brethren wear. It seems when any one of them dies it is put on a red velvet cushion, which is laid on his breast in the coffin, and then before burial it is taken off and the Master fastens it to the gown of the next brother. Instances have been known where, by mistake, the cross has been left on the corpse, and there was a brother who was now wearing one which had been exhumed.

[Sidenote: The Brew.]

Only when we came to look at the black jacks and talk of the beer was our informant slightly at fault. The founder, thinking that his bedesmen would be thirsty souls, ordered each to have daily with his meat and salad mortrell (bread and milk) a gallon and a half of good small beer. Considering this and the free drinks given at the lodge--now reduced to two gallons a day--we may suppose that brewing was a principal industry in the hospital. No beer is now made here or supplied to the men. Our guide told us that about seven years ago the brethren’s wives lived in the village, and that a question was asked, which they preferred--their beer or their wives. To some this might have been puzzling; but the gallant Knights of St. Cross answered without hesitation in favour of their better halves. This raised them greatly in my estimation; but it appears that, in truth, their wives, or in default of them, housekeepers, have been allowed to live here as far back as most people can remember, and the allowance of beer was stopped, because some of the men took too much of it, and others preferred stronger stuff, being of the monkish opinion that--

“Drinkere stalum Non fecit malum”--

and exchanged it in the village. So they were glad to take money instead.

The greater part of the building here is due to Cardinal Beaufort--the gateway, hall, master’s house, and all the lodgings on the west side. He called the hospital the “Almshouse of Noble Poverty,” and provided an endowment by which some brethren who had “seen better days” should be added to the thirteen of the De Blois foundation. A distinction between the two classes is kept up, the Beaufort men wearing red gowns, but there are very few of them. I heard that a clergyman was here a few years since, but resigned his place. Provision was made for the maintenance of eleven servants and fourteen horses. The present revenue is about £6,000 a year.[101]

[Sidenote: St. Catherine’s Hill.]

On leaving the hospital, instead of returning as I came, I went to the right through a gate and over a stream; and, following a northerly path across the fields by the engine house, crossed the Itchen to St. Catherine’s Hill, which I saw rising close to me. There was formerly a chapel on it, the tower of which was blown down in 1268, but the building was there in Henry VIII.’s time.

A splendid view opened as I climbed the height. On the summit I inspected the mismaze. It is fancifully said to have been cut by the boy who wrote “Dulce Domum.” But when we consider the Cerne Giant and the White Horse we shall consider it due to the vicinity of the monastery, and made by the monks for amusement or penance. It is not a labyrinth properly so-called, because if you enter at one end you cannot fail to reach the other. I saw some children, who had been playing “touch wood” in the neighbouring clump of pines, walking through it, and they said it could be done in four minutes.

Here I stand within a magic circle--a line of circumvallation which transports me to a past when there was a wild population here that threw up intrenchments to protect themselves and their cattle from attack. The large circuit of this embankment shows that the habitations around the neighbourhood were not sparse; for we may be sure that when they had to throw up the earth with their hands, they would not make it larger than necessary, and when they lived much on game they did not require great space for cattle. These remains are especially interesting in connection with the many “Druidical” monoliths found about this part of the country.

[Sidenote: Origin of Winchester.]

We may say that this was the original site of Winchester. When the people became powerful and more constantly centralized, they settled on the lower ground, as at Bristol and Salisbury. Some twenty miles to the south-east there is a fortified height known as “Old Winchester hill,” and so-called from a tradition that the town at first stood upon its summit.

While descending on the turf among the harebells (hairbells?) I found a specimen of the blue gentian. What a study is every flower--how beautifully is it finished inside and outside! I thought of the “lilies of the field.” Solomon and his array! How would he have looked with his robes reversed?

I made my way to the river, and walked along it in a path fringed with golden ragwort, then passed through the millyard, crossed the river, and continued along its margin till I reached the cottage gardens, and emerged close to the bridge at the end of High Street.

FOOTNOTES:

[98] Best known to many for the scene in “Henry Dunbar.”

[99] The “Hundred Mennes Hall” is now used as a barn.

[100] She is said to have been “a respectable lady.” The jury hesitated, but Jeffreys insisted. James was swift upon rebels. He wanted his brother Charles to hang Milton.

[101] On the walls are the names of several masters. R. Buteshall was master in 1346. Roger Sherborne and Henry Compton both became bishops.

EIGHTH AND FOLLOWING DAYS.

Ancient Britons--St. John’s Church--Magdalen Hospital--Punchbowl--Chilcombe--St. Peter’s Cheesehill--Twyford--Monoliths--Brambridge Avenue--Otterbourne--Compton--“Oliver’s Battery”--Hursley--Tomb of Keble--Merdon Castle--Farley Mount--The Hampage Oak--Tichborne.

Chilcombe!--in the Domesday Book Ciltecumbe--what a deliciously Celtic name! It reminds us of the time when “Gwent” also was only a group of beehive huts. We can see such in Cornwall at the present day.

“Gwent” (whence Venta Belgarum[102] and Winchester) signified an opening. A river beneath a grassy hill was a cheering sight to the early inhabitant of Britain. The chalk downs here afforded a clear expanse by which he could reach the interior of the country without any fear of losing his way among trees or being attacked by wild beasts. The forests then abounded with large stags, wolves, bears, and wild oxen.

[Sidenote: The Itchen.]

No doubt the choice of the site was partly determined by the convenience of the Itchen. On its breast we see successively the canoes and coracles of the Britons, the galleys of the Romans, and the royal ships of the Saxons and Danes, with their many oars, pictured sails, and formidable figure-heads. In the time of the Normans it became more crowded, and without it the Cathedral could not have been built, as the stone came from quarries in the Isle of Wight. Even Wykeham obtained materials from this source, and the river must have presented a busy scene in the palmy days of the fair, when merchandise was arriving from distant shores. The river was afterwards disused, obstructed apparently by the construction of mills, for when the city was in a dilapidated condition in Henry VIII.’s time, the Mayor and Corporation suggested that the mills should be “pulled up, so that barges might come to the city as formerly.” In recent times a canal has been made, called “the navigable Itchen,” a name which, as we look at its silent and deserted course, seems to have a sound of mockery.

Chilcombe is a large parish, and reaches nearly into Winchester. Cynegils in the seventh century gave it to the monastery. But on the high ground above Chilcombe Lodge, the present parsonage, was lately found a curiosity which carries back our retrospect far beyond all such modern history. In sinking a well an aërolite was discovered imbedded forty feet in the chalk! Can we imagine the time when this bolt fell hissing into the sea, and lodged upon some of the shellfish, whose remains formed these white rocks? The “everlasting” hills did not then exist, and the most important inhabitants of the earth were huge and hideous lizards. Does the thought occur to us that in the cycles of ages the time may return

“When all the bloomy flush of life is fled”?--

if it does let us banish it.

Crossing Soke Bridge and passing Water Lane I came, on the same side, to St. John’s Street. Close to this, on the slope of St. Giles’ hill was the original school where Alfred was instructed. We find, in the Close Rolls, King John ordered William of Cornhill, to make one “Jeffery” attend school at Winchester, and provide him with necessaries for the purpose.

[Sidenote: St. John’s.]

Proceeding along the street I came to the Church of St. John. It has no chancel, and is nearly square--would have been perfectly so, only for the road which passes it. This was the old Roman road from Canterbury, and this was the first church pilgrims came to in the suburbs of Winchester, hence we find a Decorated niche outside the east wall in which stood a figure of the Virgin for their benefit. Inside the church are many little niches, a very pretty triple one has just been discovered near the altar. There are also two “squints.” The tower, which may be partly Saxon, is a mass of chalk six feet thick. There were at one time some frescoes on the north wall, in which the devil was a principal character, but for more than twenty years they have been decently plastered up, and there is nothing now to offend the eyes of the worshipper unless it be the large crucifix over the rood screen. A new stained east window has lately been inserted in memory of a curate who died here at the early age of twenty-five. He took great interest in the church, and bravely continued his work until within four months of his death. The centre of the window contains what I was told was a good likeness of him.[103]

Near the end of the street I came to an ancient wooden cottage with heavy beams, which had formerly been the “Blue Ball.” Opposite stands “St. John’s Croft,” a large red-brick edifice, adorned with wood-carving on its porch, and with some cut stone bosses from Magdalen Hospital. A few yards behind this there is a row of four brick-and-tile cottages--the last remains of that celebrated foundation.

[Sidenote: Morn Hill.]

Passing in front of St. John’s Croft I came to a pathway on a bank beside the high road, and soon, as I proceeded up the hill, a fine view opened on the left over the valley and the rich fields through which the Itchen meanders--and then the country on the right became visible, and I reached a breezy down spangled with harebells and eyebright. Here I came to Victoria Hospital; and on the right hand, about a hundred yards this side of the farmhouse beyond it, stood the Magdalen (“Morn”) Leper Hospital. I am able to speak with certainty, for a lady told me that an old gentleman, who died twenty years ago, pointed out the spot to her and showed her some tiles that had fallen from the roof. A well was lately found in the field opposite. I am sorry to say that this establishment was badly treated in 1643 by the Royalist soldiers, who burned the gates and consumed the provisions.

A picture of the four pointed arches and lofty windows which stood here at the end of the last century can be seen in the Winchester Museum. It is interesting now that every vestige of this hospital has disappeared--except the archway in the Roman Catholic Chapel in St. Peter’s Street--to read in the Harleian Manuscripts (328) of the ornaments it once possessed--the silver pix and cups, the vestments and books, the green carpet powdered with birds and roses, the Spanish cloth, given by William of Basing, and the standards to be carried on Rogation days. This hospital was founded in 1174 by Bishop Toclyve, whose signature to a document is a great curiosity in the British Museum. The ruins were removed at the beginning of this century, as they had become an harbour for mendicants not belonging to religious orders.

The distance is about a mile and a half from the Butter Cross, and this seems to have been thought anciently, as it is now, a safe position for the location of infectious and contagious diseases.

Returning, and passing the Victoria Hospital a few hundred yards, I struck right across the downs and saw on my left five mounds, which brought other sad memories of disease, for here the bodies of those who died of the plague were thrown into pits. It was on these downs that King John hypocritically fell down on his knees before the Pope’s prelates. Here they, weeping, raised him up, and all proceeded to the Cathedral singing the Fiftieth Psalm.[104]

[Sidenote: Longwood.]

Looking southwards I saw under me the Petersfield road, to which I descended, and walked on it right away for more than a mile to visit the Punchbowl, a circular hollow in the downs, almost capacious enough for that thirsty Dutchman who drank the Zuyder Zee. From thence, if I had desired, I might have marched on for three or four miles to the beautiful woods of Longwood. I well remember having once walked through them on a summer evening, when the sunshine was casting a chequered glow through the oaks and beeches--such scenes are not easily forgotten. Lord Northesk still retains the old family mansion, though a handsome new residence has been built beside it.

[Sidenote: Chilcombe.]

On this occasion I was not so enterprising, so returning nearly to where I took the road, I turned to the left towards Chilcombe, which I saw lying in a nook among the hills shaded with large trees. This hamlet is still nearly as small as it was in the time of the ancient Britons. After reaching and passing by the half-dozen cottages which compose it, the road decreased to a lane, and became steep as I approached the church. This was truly the “church in the wilderness.” There was no house near it at which I could obtain the key, so I had to turn back to the village. On my way I met some little children playing, one of whom, a girl of about twelve, regarded me through her dark eyes with undisguised curiosity.

“Can you tell me who has the key of the church?” I inquired.

“The clerk has it,” she replied; “but he’s dead.”

This answer well-nigh threw me into despair; but I determined to inquire at some neighbouring cottages. At one where I applied, the fair occupant also gave me a vague reply, saying that, “If it’s anywhere, Mrs. Solomons has it.” I observed that this little dwelling was in a very decrepit state. The ceiling, which a tall man might reach, was innocent of plaster, and made a sad exhibition of “ribs and trucks.”

“This seems to be an old house,” I said.

“Oh yes, sir, very,” she responded. “It has been for a long time falling down through the chimney,” she added, pointing to the wide hearth.

Following her advice, I went to the former parsonage, close at hand, which I reached under a snow-white mass of fragrant clematis. There I obtained what I required and returned to the church.

This tiny sanctuary has a wooden bellcot for a tower, and the smallest east window I ever saw, inserted within the original Norman opening. There are three Norman arches here, some fifteenth-century tiles, and an old flat monumental slab, from which all but a large cross has been worn off by the feet of generations. And this is all that remains of the nine churches which once adorned Chilcombe!

The lane leading to the church gradually dwindles to a footpath and crosses the downs to Morestead--a pleasant walk. I met some boys coming along it, carrying wallets full of nuts, with which the wayside abounds.

On my return I diverged to the right along a green bridle path, and thus made a circuit of the hamlet.

Before reaching Winchester (two miles) I passed a large tree standing up quite dead, a piteous skeleton, shining and bleaching in the sun. It had been struck with lightning, I was told. I never before saw such a sight; but in Australia, where the settlers pay the natives to ring-bark the trees, you may see forests of them raising up their bare arms to heaven, as if appealing against the treatment they had received.