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.
[Illustration: St. Catharine’s Hill from St. Cross.]
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.]
[Illustration: St John’s from a Cottage Garden]
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.”
[Illustration: Chilcombe Church.]
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.
[Illustration: A CHILCOMBE TOMBSTONE.]
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.
[Illustration: Saint Peter Cheesehill from above the Station.]
Passing Chilcombe Lodge, with its cypresses, I came to an old inn
called “The Brewers Arms,” and was told that a hostel formerly called
“The Drum” had stood on this site for four hundred years. Close to
it is the church of St. Peter’s Cheesehill. The people call it
“Chisel”; it is named from gravel like the Chesil Beach near Weymouth.
The church is square like St. John’s. It contains some handsome chalk
niches, with heads carved under them, and there is a curious grating
high up in the west wall for those in the adjoining house to hear the
service.
[Sidenote: Twyford.]
A pleasant walk leads from the bridge along the bank of the river
to Twyford--three miles distant--but I started in that direction
through Southgate Street, which is part of the Southampton Road. After
passing St. Cross and proceeding on for about a half-mile, I came to
a bifurcation and a signpost, and took the lower road to the left,
walking by grassy banks golden with fleabane. I crossed the Itchen,
and soon a branch of that river--fringed with a line of wild foliage,
purple willow-herb and hemp agrimony. Then I reached Twyford Lodge, the
residence of Colonel Bates, and farther on took the right-hand turning
to the church. It is modern except the window, but stands on a ring
of prehistoric monoliths, preserving the old sanctity of the place.
The graveyard is adorned with some magnificent coniferæ, specimens
of the Wellingtonia, deodara, picea pinsapo, cypress, and cedar; but
the pride of the whole is an immense yew-tree which rises in the
centre in ancient majesty. It is of great girth, and withal as sound
as a bell, and it is cut into the form of one--or, I might say, of
Robinson Crusoe’s umbrella. Go beneath it and gaze up into its maze of
branches--a wondrous sight!
On leaving this shrubbery I turned round to the left, and, had I
desired, I could have walked through “silken grass,” across a couple
of fields, to the railway station, passing by the woods round Shawford
Park (Sir Charles Frederick’s), and over the river, which is here
divided into three parts.[105] But I sat down to rest upon a seat
placed by some fairy godmother at the first bridge, and looked down
into the Itchen, where the long green foliage was waving like the hair
of water nymphs. Does not Tennyson speak of our life swaying “like
those long mosses in the stream”? I seemed to be looking down into a
clear agate and the liquid murmur was only broken at intervals by the
jumping of a trout.
Before me lay two elephantine blocks of stone, brought by some of our
unknown predecessors. I amused myself with conjuring up pictures of the
past, and thinking that here--
“Sage beneath the spreading oak,
Sat the Druid hoary chief.”
and while I fancied I could still hear his low chanting, my mind
wandered off to reflect that this neighbourhood is sacred to a real
modern “druid.” There was a celebrated school at Twyford and among its
pupils was Pope. His satiric talent brought, as usual, disgrace, for he
was sent away for writing a squib on the master, who had become a Roman
Catholic.
Returning to the church, I regained the high road, and immediately on
my right saw a large red-brick house, which had an air of old-fashioned
importance. I was anxious to find Shipley House, where Franklin, as a
guest of Bishop Shipley, wrote his life. I could find no one to inquire
from, but soon a labouring man came along, and I asked him if this was
Shipley House.
“No, sir,” he replied, “this is Twyford House. Shipley House is nearly
a mile further on.”
I was surprised to hear this.
“Is it an old house?” I said.
“Oh yes, sir--it was built in 1860.”
This then was not the object of my search, and I found that the mansion
I was looking at was the old Shipley House.
[Illustration: Twyford. Queen of Hampshire Villages.]
Passing by a school on the left, and entering the street of the little
town, I saw in the centre of it a blacksmith’s shop with another
megalith in front of it. Dean Kitchin has given the great stones,
with which this place abounds, their full weight, and considers that
Twyford may be so called from Tuesco, the deity we commemorate on
Tuesday. Further on I came to a brewery, evidently not for small beer,
for it had a triumphal arch with a profusion of embellishments which
must irritate the feelings of good teetotalers. There are besides
these new structures some timber-crossed cottages in the village, with
old-fashioned hollyhocks, blue campanulas, and masses of phlox. Before
leaving, I may observe, that this “Queen of Hampshire villages” ought
to be in high favour with the fair sex as many of them have become
Young by residing in it.
Proceeding straight on into the country, I came to the Manor farm
with several old arches in front of it, suggestive of a monastery. A
little beyond this is the lodge of the present Shipley House, with two
tall cypresses (Lawsonianæ) in front of it. Then, coming to another
finger-post, I took the beautiful road to Brambridge,[106] overhung on
both sides with trees. And now a long wall of gravel and mortar skirts
my right along Brambridge Park.[107] The avenue here is said to be the
finest in Hampshire. It consists of four rows of lime-trees. The double
line on each side is a study for an artist, the outer branches drooping
down and resting on the ground, while the inner, being close together,
have been drawn up, so that they rise on either side like the columns
of a cathedral. The house belonged to the Fitzherbert family, and it
is locally supposed that George IV. was privately married in the old
chapel attached to it.
Turning round the park on the right, I again crossed the river,
or rather canal, saw a pretty cascade caused by the old lock, and
soon reached the little old church of Otterbourne--forsaken and
neglected--standing in the midst of a yard full of mouldering
gravestones. Many a large and handsome monument--thought much of in
its day--is here entirely concealed in ivy; as completely obscured
and lost to view as those to whose memory it was erected. Proceeding
to the north, I entered the village of Otterbourne, with its neat new
brick cottages and large green common. In its centre some children
were playing round a large horse-chestnut tree, whose leaves had been
touched by the rosy fingers of autumn. At the right-hand corner is an
old house of comfortable dimensions, covered with a variety of climbing
plants. This is the quiet village home of Miss Yonge, the authoress of
the “Heir of Redclyffe.”
[Sidenote: Compton.]
From this point I regained the Southampton Road, and in about a mile
turned up to the left to visit Compton, which consists of a few
picturesque tiled cottages. The tiny church stood in a bed of luxuriant
grass. The fine old oak porch was taken down by some Vandals fifty
years ago, and the present unsightly one substituted. Lately some of
the parishioners wanted the rector to have a new door, a request he
happily withstood, saying he was proud of the existing one, which is
of great age and of massive oak. On the lock can be seen the marks of
the axe with which it was rudely shaped. The entrance arch is Norman,
adorned with half-a-dozen lines of zigzag carving. There is, as at
St. Bartholomew’s, a kind of reflected arch behind it. This church is
an anomaly, inasmuch as it has no foundation; it merely stands on the
chalk, of which the dressings of the window are also made. Towards
the altar there is on the wall a fresco representing a bishop with a
crozier standing beside the gable of a church, perhaps intended for the
Cathedral. A stone coffin, containing the skeleton of a giant measuring
six feet to his shoulders, was found here in front of the altar.
This church stands only a few hundred yards from the Southampton Road,
by which I returned (2 miles) to Winchester.
Now for a round of fourteen miles. Passing through the Westgate, I
turned to the left by the barracks and crossed the railway cutting,
proceeding on the road which leads toward the magnificent Norman
church of Romsey, which is twelve miles distant. On the left I soon
came to the Catholic Cemetery, with its high wall, built in 1829. It
contains many tombstones whose inscriptions are worn away by age; one
preserved by lying flat under the turf is to a member of the Tichborne
family, dated 1637. Farther on, upon the right, behind a beautiful belt
of trees and some bright flowers stands concealed the grim arch of the
County Gaol. Nearly opposite is the Infirmary. Farther on, I passed a
large school and waterworks; these buildings are handsome, and of red
brick.
[Sidenote: Oliver’s Battery.]
I continued on up the long ascent known as “Sleeper’s Hill.” The
country people tell you that here seven men fell asleep in a field when
the Cathedral was commenced, awoke when it was finished, and, after
going to inspect it, came back to their cold bed and crumbled into
dust. In about a mile I saw a clump of dark fir-trees on the left,
standing on a spot called “Oliver’s Battery.” (Any one wishing to visit
it should take the first turning to the downs, for you cannot cross the
fields farther on.)