Chapter 15

OLD HOSPITALS AND ALMSHOUSES

There are in many towns and villages hospitals--not the large modern and usually unsightly buildings wherein the sick are cured, with wards all spick and span and up to date--but beautiful old buildings mellowed with age wherein men and women, on whom the snows of life have begun to fall thickly, may rest and recruit and take their ease before they start on the long, dark journey from which no traveller returns to tell to those he left behind how he fared.

Almshouses we usually call them now, but our forefathers preferred to call them hospitals, God's hostels, "God huis," as the Germans call their beautiful house of pity at Lübeck, where the tired-out and money-less folk might find harbourage. The older hospitals were often called "bede-houses," because the inmates were bound to pray for their founder and benefactors. Some medieval hospitals, memorials of the charity of pre-Reformation Englishmen, remain, but many were suppressed during the age of spoliation; and others have been so rebuilt and restored that there is little left of the early foundation.

We may notice three classes of these foundations. First, there are the pre-Reformation bede-houses or hospitals; the second group is composed of those which were built during the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I. The Civil War put a stop to the foundation of almshouses. The principal landowners were impoverished by the war or despoiled by the Puritans, and could not build; the charity of the latter was devoted to other purposes. With the Restoration of the Church and the Monarchy another era of the building of almshouses set in, and to this period very many of our existing institutions belong.

Of the earliest group we have several examples left. There is the noble hospital of St. Cross at Winchester, founded in the days of anarchy during the contest between Stephen and Matilda for the English throne. Its hospitable door is still open. Bishop Henry of Blois was its founder, and he made provision for thirteen poor men to be housed, boarded, and clothed, and for a hundred others to have a meal every day. He placed the hospital under the care of the Master of the Knights Hospitallers. Fortunately it was never connected with a monastery. Hence it escaped pillage and destruction at the dissolution of monastic houses. Bishop Henry was a great builder, and the church of the hospital is an interesting example of a structure of the Transition Norman period, when the round arch was giving way to the Early English pointed arch. To this foundation was added in 1443 by Cardinal Beaufort an extension called the "Almshouse of Noble Poverty," and it is believed that the present domestic buildings were erected by him.[58] The visitor can still obtain the dole of bread and ale at the gate of St. Cross. Winchester is well provided with old hospitals: St. John's was founded in 931 and refounded in 1289; St. Mary Magdalen, by Bishop Toclyve in 1173-88 for nine lepers; and Christ's Hospital in 1607.

[58] Mr. Nisbett gives a good account of the hospital in _Memorials of Old Hampshire_, and Mr. Champneys fully describes the buildings in the _Architectural Review_, October, 1903, and April, 1904.

We will visit some less magnificent foundations. Some are of a very simple type, resembling a church with nave and chancel. The nave part was a large hall divided by partitions on each side of an alley into little cells in which the bedesmen lived. Daily Mass was celebrated in the chancel, the chapel of hospital, whither the inmates resorted; but the sick and infirm who could not leave their cells were able to join in the service. St. Mary's Hospital, at Chichester, is an excellent example, as it retains its wooden cells, which are still used by the inmates. It was formerly a nunnery, but in 1229 the nuns departed and the almswomen took their place. It is of wide span with low side-walls, and the roof is borne by wooden pillars. There are eight cells of two rooms each, and beyond the screen is a little chapel, which is still used by the hospitallers.[59]

[59] The _Treasury_, November, 1907, an article on hospitals by Dr. Hermitage Day.

Archbishop Chichele founded a fine hospital at Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, which saw his lowly birth, together with a school and college, about the year 1475. The building is still in existence and shows a good roof and fine Perpendicular window, but the twelve bedesmen and the one sister, who was to be chosen for her plainness, no longer use the structure.

Stamford can boast of a fine medieval hospital, the foundation of Thomas Browne in 1480 for the accommodation of ten old men and two women. A new quadrangle has been built for the inmates, but you can still see the old edifice with its nave of two storeys, its fifteenth-century stained glass, and its chapel with its screen and stalls and altar.

Stamford has another hospital which belongs to our second group. Owing to the destruction of monasteries, which had been great benefactors to the poor and centres of vast schemes of charity, there was sore need for almshouses and other schemes for the relief of the aged and destitute. The _nouveaux riches_, who had fattened on the spoils of the monasteries, sought to salve their consciences by providing for the wants of the poor, building grammar schools, and doing some good with their wealth. Hence many almshouses arose during this period. This Stamford home was founded by the great Lord Burghley in 1597. It is a picturesque group of buildings with tall chimneys, mullioned and dormer windows, on the bank of the Welland stream, and occupies the site of a much more ancient foundation.

There is the college at Cobham, in Kent, the buildings forming a pleasant quadrangle south of the church. Flagged pathways cross the greensward of the court, and there is a fine hall wherein the inmates used to dine together.

As we traverse the village streets we often meet with these grey piles of sixteenth-century almshouses, often low, one-storeyed buildings, picturesque and impressive, each house having a welcoming porch with a seat on each side and a small garden full of old-fashioned flowers. The roof is tiled, on which moss and lichen grow, and the chimney-stacks are tall and graceful. An inscription records the date and name of the generous founder with his arms and motto. Such a home of peace you will find at Quainton, in Buckinghamshire, founded, as an inscription records, "Anno Dom. 1687. These almshouses were then erected and endow'd by Richard Winwood, son and heir of Right Hon'ble Sir Ralph Winwood, Bart., Principal Secretary of State to King James y'e First." Within these walls dwell (according to the rules drawn up by Sir Ralph Verney in 1695) "three poor men--widowers,--to be called Brothers, and three poor women--widows,--to be called Sisters." Very strict were these rules for the government of the almshouses, as to erroneous opinions in any principle of religion, the rector of Quainton being the judge, the visiting of alehouses, the good conduct of the inmates, who were to be "no whisperers, quarrelers, evil speakers or contentious."

These houses at Quainton are very humble abodes; other almshouses are large and beautiful buildings erected by some rich merchant, or great noble, or London City company, for a large scheme of charity. Such are the beautiful almshouses in the Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, founded in the early part of the eighteenth century under the terms of the will of Sir Robert Geffery. They stand in a garden about an acre in extent, a beautiful oasis in the surrounding desert of warehouses, reminding the passer-by of the piety and loyal patriotism of the great citizens of London, and affording a peaceful home for many aged folk. This noble building, of great architectural dignity, with the figure of the founder over the porch and its garden with fine trees, has only just escaped the hands of the destroyer and been numbered among the bygone treasures of vanished England. It was seriously proposed to pull down this peaceful home of poor people and sell the valuable site to the Peabody Donation Fund for the erection of working-class dwellings. The almshouses are governed by the Ironmongers' Company, and this proposal was made; but, happily, the friends of ancient buildings made their protest to the Charity Commissioners, who have refused their sanction to the sale, and the Geffery Almshouses will continue to exist, continue their useful mission, and remain the chief architectural ornament in a district that sorely needs "sweetness and light."

City magnates who desired to build and endow hospitals for the aged nearly always showed their confidence in and affection for the Livery Companies to which they belonged by placing in their care these charitable foundations. Thus Sir Richard Whittington, of famous memory, bequeathed to the Mercers' Company all his houses and tenements in London, which were to be sold and the proceeds distributed in various charitable works. With this sum they founded a College of Priests, called Whittington College, which was suppressed at the Reformation, and the almshouses adjoining the old church of St. Michael Paternoster, for thirteen poor folk, of whom one should be principal or tutor. The Great Fire destroyed the buildings; they were rebuilt on the same site, but in 1835 they were fallen into decay, and the company re-erected them at Islington, where you will find Whittington College, providing accommodation for twenty-eight poor women. Besides this the Mercers have charge of Lady Mico's Almshouses at Stepney, founded in 1692 and rebuilt in 1857, and the Trinity Hospital at Greenwich, founded in 1615 by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton. This earl was of a very charitable disposition, and founded other hospitals at Castle Rising in Norfolk and Clun in Shropshire. The Mercers continue to manage the property and have built a new hospital at Shottisham, besides making grants to the others created by the founder. It is often the custom of the companies to expend out of their private income far more than they receive from the funds of the charities which they administer.

The Grocers' Company have almshouses and a Free Grammar School at Oundle in Northamptonshire, founded by Sir William Laxton in 1556, upon which they have expended vast sums of money. The Drapers administer the Mile End Almshouses and school founded in 1728 by Francis Bancroft, Sir John Jolles's almshouses at Tottenham, founded in 1618, and very many others. They have two hundred in the neighbourhood of London alone, and many others in different parts of the country. Near where I am writing is Lucas's Hospital at Wokingham, founded by Henry Lucas in 1663, which he placed in the charge of the company. It is a beautiful Carolian house with a central portion and two wings, graceful and pleasing in every detail. The chapel is situated in one wing and the master's house in the other, and there are sets of rooms for twelve poor men chosen from the parishes in the neighbourhood. The Fishmongers have the management of three important hospitals. At Bray, in Berkshire, famous for its notable vicar, there stands the ancient Jesus Hospital, founded in 1616 under the will of William Goddard, who directed that there should be built rooms with chimneys in the said hospital, fit and convenient for forty poor people to dwell and inhabit it, and that there should be one chapel or place convenient to serve Almighty God in for ever with public and divine prayers and other exercises of religion, and also one kitchen and bakehouse common to all the people of the said hospital. Jesus Hospital is a quadrangular building, containing forty almshouses surrounding a court which is divided into gardens, one of which is attached to each house. It has a pleasing entrance through a gabled brick porch which has over the Tudor-shaped doorway a statue of the founder and mullioned latticed windows. The old people live happy and contented lives, and find in the eventide of their existence a cheerful home in peaceful and beautiful surroundings. The Fishmongers also have almshouses at Harrietsham, in Kent, founded by Mark Quested, citizen and fishmonger of London, in 1642, which they rebuilt in 1772, and St. Peter's Hospital, Wandsworth, formerly called the Fishmongers' Almshouses. The Goldsmiths have a very palatial pile of almshouses at Acton Park, called Perryn's Almshouses, with a grand entrance portico, and most of the London companies provide in this way homes for their decayed members, so that they may pass their closing years in peace and freedom from care.

Fishermen, who pass their lives in storm and danger reaping the harvest of the sea, have not been forgotten by pious benefactors. One of the most picturesque buildings in Great Yarmouth is the Fishermen's Hospital, of which we give some illustrations. It was founded by the corporation of the town in 1702 for the reception of twenty old fishermen and their wives. It is a charming house of rest, with its gables and dormer windows and its general air of peace and repose. The old men look very comfortable after battling for so many years with the storms of the North Sea. Charles II granted to the hospital an annuity of £160 for its support, which was paid out of the excise on beer, but when the duty was repealed the annuity naturally ceased.

The old hospital at King's Lynn was destroyed during the siege, as this quaint inscription tells:--

THIS HOSPITAL WAS BURNT DOWN AT LIN SEGE AND REBULT 1649 NATH MAXEY MAYOR AND EDW ROBINSON ALDMAN TREASURER PRO TEM P.R.O.

Norwich had several important hospitals. Outside the Magdalen gates stood the Magdalen Hospital, founded by Bishop Herbert, the first bishop. It was a house for lepers, and some portions of the Norman chapel still exist in a farm-building by the roadside. The far-famed St. Giles's Hospital in Bishopsgate Street is an ancient foundation, erected by Bishop Walter Suffield in 1249 for poor chaplains and other poor persons. It nearly vanished at the Reformation era, like so many other kindred institutions, but Henry VIII and Edward VI granted it a new charter. The poor clergy were, however, left out in the cold, and the benefits were confined to secular folk. For the accommodation of its inmates the chancel of the church was divided by a floor into an upper and a lower storey, and this arrangement still exists, and you can still admire the picturesque ivy-clad tower, the wards with cosy ingle-nooks at either end and cubicles down the middle, the roof decorated with eagles, deemed to be the cognizance of Queen Anne of Bohemia, wife of Richard II, the quaint little cloister, and above all, the excellent management of this grand institution, the "Old Man's Hospital," as it is called, which provides for the necessities of 150 old folk, whose wants are cared for by a master and twelve nurses.

Let us travel far and visit another charming almshouse, Abbot's Hospital, at Guildford, which is an architectural gem and worthy of the closest inspection. It was founded by Archbishop Abbot in 1619, and is a noble building of mellowed brick with finely carved oak doors, graceful chimneys with their curious "crow-rests," noble staircases, interesting portraits, and rare books, amongst which is a Vinegar Bible. The chapel with its Flemish windows showing the story of Jacob and Esau, and oak carvings and almsbox dated 1619, is especially attractive. Here the founder retired in sadness and sorrow after his unfortunate day's hunting in Bramshill Park, where he accidentally shot a keeper, an incident which gave occasion to his enemies to blaspheme and deride him. Here the Duke of Monmouth was confined on his way to London after the battle of Sedgemoor. The details of the building are worthy of attention, especially the ornamented doors and doorways, the elaborate latches, beautifully designed and furnished with a spring, and elegant casement-fasteners. Guildford must have had a school of great artists of these window-fasteners. Near the hospital there is a very interesting house, No. 25 High Street, now a shop, but formerly the town clerk's residence and the lodgings of the judges of assize; no better series in England of beautifully designed window-fasteners can be found than in this house, erected in 1683; it also has a fine staircase like that at Farnham Castle, and some good plaster ceilings resembling Inigo Jones's work and probably done by his workmen.

The good town of Abingdon has a very celebrated hospital founded in 1446 by the Guild of the Holy Cross, a fraternity composed of "good men and true," wealthy merchants and others, which built the bridge, repaired roads, maintained a bridge priest and a rood priest, and held a great annual feast at which the brethren consumed as much as 6 calves, 16 lambs, 80 capons, 80 geese, and 800 eggs. It was a very munificent and beneficent corporation, and erected these almshouses for thirteen poor men and the same number of poor women. That hospital founded so long ago still exists. It is a curious and ancient structure in one storey, and is denoted Christ's Hospital. One of our recent writers on Berkshire topography, whose historical accuracy is a little open to criticism, gives a good description of the building:--

"It is a long range of chambers built of mellow brick and immemorial oak, having in their centre a small hall, darkly wainscoted, the very table in which makes a collector sinfully covetous. In front of the modest doors of the chambers inhabited by almsmen and almswomen runs a tiny cloister with oak pillars, so that the inmates may visit one another dryshod in any weather. Each door, too, bears a text from the Old or New Testament. A more typical relic of the old world, a more sequestered haven of rest, than this row of lowly buildings, looking up to the great church in front, and with its windows opening on to green turf bordered with flowers in the rear, it could not enter into the heart of man to imagine."[60]

[60] _Highways and Byways in Berkshire_.

We could spend endless time in visiting the old almshouses in many parts of the country. There is the Ford's Hospital in Coventry, erected in 1529, an extremely good specimen of late Gothic work, another example of which is found in St. John's Hospital at Rye. The Corsham Almshouses in Wiltshire, erected in 1663, are most picturesque without, and contain some splendid woodwork within, including a fine old reading-desk with carved seat in front. There is a large porch with an immense coat-of-arms over the door. In the region of the Cotswolds, where building-stone is plentiful, we find a noble set of almshouses at Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire, a gabled structure near the church with tall, graceful chimneys and mullioned windows, having a raised causeway in front protected by a low wall. Ewelme, in Oxfordshire, is a very attractive village with a row of cottages half a mile long, which have before their doors a sparkling stream dammed here and there into watercress beds. At the top of the street on a steep knoll stand church and school and almshouses of the mellowest fifteenth-century bricks, as beautiful and structurally sound as the pious founders left them. These founders were the unhappy William de la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk, and his good wife the Duchess Alice. The Duke inherited Ewelme through his wife Alice Chaucer, a kinswoman of the poet, and "for love of her and the commoditie of her landes fell much to dwell in Oxfordshire," and in 1430-40 was busy building a manor-place of "brick and Tymbre and set within a fayre mote," a church, an almshouse, and a school. The manor-place, or "Palace," as it was called, has disappeared, but the almshouse and school remain, witnesses of the munificence of the founders. The poor Duke, favourite minister of Henry VI, was exiled by the Yorkist faction, and beheaded by the sailors on his way to banishment. Twenty-five years of widowhood fell to the bereaved duchess, who finished her husband's buildings, called the almshouses "God's House," and then reposed beneath one of the finest monuments in England in the church hard by. The almshouses at Audley End, Essex, are amongst the most picturesque in the country. Such are some of these charming homes of rest that time has spared.

The old people who dwell in them are often as picturesque as their habitations. Here you will find an old woman with her lace-pillow and bobbins, spectacles on nose, and white bonnet with strings, engaged in working out some intricate lace pattern. In others you will see the inmates clad in their ancient liveries. The dwellers in the Coningsby Hospital at Hereford, founded in 1614 for old soldiers and aged servants, had a quaint livery consisting of "a fustian suit of ginger colour, of a soldier-like fashion, and seemly laced; a cloak of red cloth lined with red baize and reaching to the knees, to be worn in walks and journeys, and a gown of red cloth, reaching to the ankle, lined also with baize, to be worn within the hospital." They are, therefore, known as Red Coats. The almsmen of Ely and Rochester have cloaks. The inmates of the Hospital of St. Cross wear as a badge a silver cross potent. At Bottesford they have blue coats and blue "beef-eater" hats, and a silver badge on the left arm bearing the arms of the Rutland family--a peacock in its pride, surmounted by a coronet and surrounded by a garter.

It is not now the fashion to found almshouses. We build workhouses instead, vast ugly barracks wherein the poor people are governed by all the harsh rules of the Poor Law, where husband and wife are separated from each other, and "those whom God hath joined together are," by man and the Poor Law, "put asunder"; where the industrious labourer is housed with the lazy and ne'er-do-weel. The old almshouses were better homes for the aged poor, homes of rest after the struggle for existence, and harbours of refuge for the tired and weary till they embark on their last voyage.