from the old Guildhall, awakens dim vistas of social history. The
custom has, of course, lost all its harsh significance, but it is one
not lost upon him who cares for tradition in an age that makes for
novelty; when vaunting soaps affront the eye of the wayfarer in their
garish advertisements, and the voice of the touter (commercial, social,
political, and religious) is heard in the land crying new lamps (of
the sorriest) for old.
But the word “lamps” reminds me that Winchester public lamps have long
been lighted with oil, for the Corporation and the Gas Company have
agreed to differ; so, pending wiser counsel in the Company’s ranks, the
City Fathers, good souls, put back the clock of social history some
sixty years by re-adopting paraffin as an illuminant.
Thus local history wags at Winchester, with but few excitements, and
those magnified to things of greatest import, by reason of their rarity.
To attempt to give here the briefest outline of Winchester’s long
and stirring story were indeed vain; but a succinct account of its
Cathedral may be of interest, as therein lies in these days most of
the charm of the place. It is an epitome of architectural history
unsurpassed in England.
One might, as a stranger, wander through the city for some while
without finding the Cathedral, and then, perhaps, be compelled to
inquire the way, for it is not possessed of soaring spire nor lofty
towers, to guide the pilgrim from afar.
The first impression one gets of the building is of its great length:
it is, indeed, the longest cathedral in England. The exterior, seen
from the north-west corner of the close, is, perhaps, disappointing,
with its long, unbroken, roof-line and low central tower, showing an
almost entire absence of that picturesque grouping which is the charm
of many others. But Winchester Cathedral has an interior equalling, if
not surpassing, all others in beauty and interest.
The present cathedral is not the first nor second building of its kind
erected here. Even before the Christian era its site held buildings
devoted to worship; for the old chroniclers, the monks, to whom we owe
most of our early history, have stated that the temple to Dagon stood
on this spot.
[Illustration: WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL.]
Up to the time of the Norman Conquest the history of the Cathedral is
one long account of building, destruction, and rebuilding--for those
were troublous times, and religious institutions fared no better than
secular.
Walkelin, the first Bishop of Winchester after the Conquest, was
appointed in 1070. In the year 1079 he began to rebuild the existing
Saxon cathedral from its foundations; and in 1086, the king, for its
completion granted him as much wood from a certain forest as his
workmen could cut and carry in the space of four days and nights. But
the wily bishop brought together an innumerable troop of workmen who,
within the prescribed time, felled the entire wood and carried it off.
For this piece of sharp practice Walkelin had to humbly implore pardon
of the enraged William.
In 1093 the new building was completed, and was dedicated to Saints
Peter and Paul.
[Illustration: ST. SWITHUN AND THE INDIGNANT TOURIST.]
The Cathedral is now (or, at least, part of it is) dedicated to Saint
Swithun. Now, Swithun was a holy man who died in the odour of sanctity
and the Saxon era. He was Bishop of Winchester, but lowly minded
indeed, for he desired his body to be buried without the building,
under the eaves, where the rain might always drip upon his grave; but
disregarding the spirit of the saint’s injunctions, the monks “howked”
his corpse up again, after first complying with the letter of them by
burying him for awhile in the cathedral yard. They proposed to enshrine
the body within the Cathedral, but the saint, who had apparently
obtained in the meantime an appointment as a sort of celestial
turncock, brought about a continuous rainfall of forty days and nights.
After this manifestation, the monks concluded to leave Swithun alone,
and he lies in the close to this day. Unfortunately, the saint seems to
have ever after made an annual commemoration of the event, commencing
with July 15th. This would be a comparatively small matter did he
confine himself to that period alone; but unlike the gyrating turncocks
of our water companies, he is constantly on duty, more particularly
when holiday folk most do fare abroad. Perhaps Swithun is offended at
his name being so continually spelled wrongly--Swithin: perhaps--but,
no matter. Anyhow, he is more addicted to water than (if all tales
be true) holy friars were wont to be, either for external or inward
application. What does Ingoldsby say of one typical friar--I quote from
memory (a shocking habit):--
“Still less had he time to change the hair shirt he
Had worn the last twenty years, probably thirty,
And which by this time had grown somewhat dirty.”
But no more frivolity: let us, pray, be serious.
XI.
Of Walkelin’s building we have preserved to us unaltered the transepts,
tower, crypt, and exterior of the south aisle. The plan, like that of
most Norman cathedrals, was cruciform, with an apsidal east end. This
plan remains almost the same; but the apse has disappeared, and in its
place we have the usual termination, with the addition of a thirteenth
century Lady Chapel.
The tower, low and yet so massive, has a curious history. In the year
1110, William, the Red King, was killed in the New Forest, slain by
the arrow of Walter Tyrrell. It is a familiar tale in history, how the
body of the feared and hated king was carried to Winchester in a cart
and buried in the choir, beneath the tower, mourned by none. Seven
years later the tower fell in utter ruin, because, according to popular
superstition, one had been buried there who had not received the last
rites of the Church. The tower was rebuilt in its present form, and the
result of the fall may be seen in the massive piers which now support
it. The tomb of Rufus is here, covered with a slab of Purbeck marble,
without inscription.
The first alteration to the plan of the Norman cathedral was made by
De Lucy, commencing in 1202. His work may be seen in part of the
Lady Chapel and in the retrochoir. The Norman choir was taken down by
Edingdon, and replaced by him in the transitional style from Decorated
to Perpendicular. But the greatest feat was the transformation of the
Norman nave into one of the Perpendicular style. This was carried out
by William of Wykeham, one of the greatest architects our country can
boast. Succeeding Bishop Edingdon in 1367, he carried on the alteration
of the nave which the late bishop had but begun.
What makes this work the more remarkable is that the Norman walls were
not removed; the ashlar facing was stripped off them and replaced by
masonry designed in the prevailing style.
Wykeham did not live to complete this his greatest work; but his will,
still extant, gives instructions to that end. The good bishop died
in 1404, and was buried in the chantry chapel he had had prepared in
that portion of the Cathedral corresponding to the pierced side of the
Saviour. Here a beautiful and elaborate altar tomb stands, bearing his
effigy, habited in the bishop’s robes, with mitre and crozier. Angels
support the head, and at the feet are figures of monks praying, while
the bishop’s arms and his motto, “Manners makyth Man,” are shown below,
with the arms of the See of Winchester.
The character of Wykeham shines out from the age in which he lived with
great brilliancy. The statesman, prelate, and architect were united
in him with a far-seeing benevolence surprising in those times. His
foundations of Winchester College and New College, Oxford, have served
as models for all the great public schools subsequently founded.
One of the most curious features of the Cathedral is the series of
mortuary chests placed above the choir screens, and containing the
bones of saints, bishops, and royal personages mixed indiscriminately.
These chests were placed here by Bishop Fox on the completion of the
screens, and are six in number, of wood, carved and painted in the
Renaissance style, just then appearing in this country. The names of
the persons whose bones are deposited in them appear on the sides, and
amongst them are Canute, Egbert, Alwyn, and Edmund Ironside.
With the placing of the present side screens of the choir the
architectural history of the Cathedral is practically ended.
The taste of the seventeenth century is, however, shown in the erection
by Inigo Jones of an anachronism in the shape of a classic screen to
the choir, which is now happily removed. Its fragments, piled up in
remote corners and forgotten, may be seen by the curious who wander in
the dim and dusty passages of the tower and transepts.
The Cathedral contains a long and splendid series of chantry chapels
of surpassing beauty, commencing with Edingdon’s and ending with
Gardiner’s. Of these and of the many beauties of detail to be seen,
this short sketch cannot treat; but before leaving the building, one
may notice a singularly beautiful memorial to Bishop Ethelmar, who died
in 1261, and whose heart only is buried here, his body lying in
Paris. He is represented in ecclesiastical vestments, and holds his
heart in his hands.
[Illustration: THE DEANERY, WINCHESTER.]
Ethelmar, or Aymer de Lusignan, or Ethelmar de Valence, a half-brother
of Henry the Third, was forced into the bishop’s throne against the
will of the monks. He became bishop in 1249, but was eventually,
through his rapacity, banished the kingdom, and forced to flee for
France.
But the history of Winchester Cathedral shows many stirring episodes,
foremost among them being that story, dim with the lapse of ages, in
which Queen Emma, mother of Edward the Confessor, is said to have
undergone the terrible ordeal of walking barefooted over red-hot
ploughshares, and to have emerged from it unscathed. Then there is told
also the shameful tale of how the miserable John, terrified by the
fulminations of the Pope, did homage before the high altar to the papal
legate for his kingdom. In later ages, Queen Mary and Philip of Spain
were married here, and there is still shown the chair in which the
queen sat on that occasion.
In the days of the Puritans, the Cathedral, in common with most other
ecclesiastical edifices, suffered much, the stained and painted glass
adorning the windows being almost entirely wrecked. But reverent hands
collected the shattered fragments, and at the Restoration placed them
in the great west window, where they are still, presenting a most
perplexing combination of haphazard odds and ends of design.
Of the two great castles formerly standing in the city, but few
fragments now remain. The royal castle, built by Henry III.,
was situated near West Gate. It was destroyed by Cromwell in his
“slighting” process, by which so many fine specimens of military
architecture were reduced to ashes.
[Illustration: BISHOP MORLEY’S PALACE.]
Here, in 1603, the noble but unfortunate Raleigh was arraigned for high
treason, and, notwithstanding his undoubted innocence, was found guilty
and cast into the Tower, where he dragged out an existence of nearly
thirteen weary years before the cupidity of James I. set him free, on a
cruise to the New World, in search of a fabulous gold mine. The hall is
the only remaining portion of the castle. It is now used as a court for
transacting county business, and contains the famed Round Table.
[Illustration: HIGH STREET, WINCHESTER.]
West Gate adjoins Castle Hill. It is of thirteenth century date, with
massive and frowning aspect, its machicolations overhanging the
central arch, from which molten lead and other unpleasant missiles were
launched upon besiegers.
The Bishop’s castle of Wolvesey is in ruins at the other end of the
city; and amid the shattered, ivy-clad walls of that Norman stronghold,
rises the seventeenth-century palace, built by Bishop Morley, and
deserted long ago by his successors, who have retired to Farnham
Castle, there to enjoy what state the rolling centuries have left the
dignified clergy.
Of all days, Saturday is here the busiest. On others, the High Street
is not distracted with commerce, but dozes continually in summer shine
and winter snows, with the mediæval West Gate at one end of the steep
roadway, and the Gothic City Cross midway between east and west, to
give something of historic perspective even to the most unheeding eye.
The Corporation of Winchester, at the beginning of the century, had
neither taste for, nor admiration of, Gothic art, for about that time
they sold the Cross, and it would have been duly carried off to adorn a
neighbouring park, had not the citizens (who had a right appreciation
of that relic of antiquity) interfered, and, with some violence,
dispersed the workmen, who had commenced operations for removing it.
Winchester City is (excuse the clashing nomenclature) a garrison
town and a military depôt. On the West Hill, in that prophetically
barrack-like shell of a palace, begun but never finished by Charles
II., the military have their habitation, and the red-coats (as the
generalising writer might say) make lively the pavements of the High
Street. But, seeing that the King’s Royal Rifles usually form the
garrison, and that their tunics are dark green, almost black, it would
be difficult to say where that lively feast of colour comes in. This
is not to say that the Winchester Tommy is a sombre person, apart from
his clothing. Not at all: the King’s Royal Rifles are youthful--mere
striplings most of them; little men, not to say undersized, and full
of spirit, as you shall see on Saturday evenings, when (if ever)
Winchester is lively.
[Illustration: A PEEP OVER ROOF-TOPS, WINCHESTER.]
It is strange how little mark Winchester College makes on Winchester
City. It lies away from the more frequented parts, to the southern
outskirts--giving upon the juicy water-meadows of the River Itchen.
At Eton, at Rugby, at Harrow you note immediately the scholars; at
Winchester they are not so frequently met with beyond the walls of
their old foundation that this year celebrates its five hundredth
anniversary. Additions have been made to the old buildings, but
practically the plan of the College remains the same as when it was
inaugurated in 1394, and the place is full of old customs and curious
survivals.
[Illustration: SAINT CATHERINE’S HILL FROM ITCHEN MEADS.]
From here we climbed to the summit of Saint Catherine’s Hill, and
viewed the city beneath. Up here is the curious maze cut in the turf
(tradition says) by a Winchester scholar, compelled for punishment to
forego his holidays and stay instead with _Alma Mater_. “Dulce Domum,”
the well-known Winchester College chant, is ascribed to him.
XII.
We left Winchester regretfully one fine morning, going through West
Gate and the suburb of Fulflood to the Stockbridge Road. “From the
western gate aforesaid,” to quote Thomas Hardy’s conclusion to “Tess
of the D’Urbervilles,” “as every Winton-cestrian knows, ascends a long
and regular incline of the exact length of a measured mile, leaving the
houses gradually behind.... The prospect from this summit was almost
unlimited. In the valley beneath lay the city, its more prominent
buildings showing as in an isometric drawing--among them the broad
Cathedral tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle
and nave, the spires of Saint Thomas’s, the pinnacled tower of the
College, and, more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient
hospice, where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread
and ale. Behind the city swept the rotund upland of St. Catherine’s
Hill; further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was
lost in the radiance of the sun hanging above it. Against these far
stretches of country rose, in front of the other city edifices, a large
red brick building, with level grey roofs, and rows of short, barred
windows bespeaking captivity, the whole contrasting greatly by its
formalism with the quaint irregularities of the Gothic erections....
From the middle of the building an ugly flat-topped octagonal tower
ascended against the east horizon, and viewed from this spot, on its
shady side and against the light, it seemed the one blot on the city’s
beauty.”
[Illustration: “AD PORTAS,” WINCHESTER COLLEGE.]
From here Angel Clare and ‘Liza-Lu beheld the black flag announce to
the city that justice had been done upon Tess: “The two speechless
gazers bent themselves to earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a
long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently.
As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went
on.”
And so, to my mind, the Stockbridge road shall be ever haunted with
these two mourners who thus disappear into the void; and Roebuck Hill
has acquired a literary interest that transfigures an eminence of no
particular elevation, and of a certain air of suburban propriety, into
a hill of sorrow. It commands Winchester Gaol, whose sordid dramas are,
by the reading of that moving tale, touched with a saving tincture of
romance.
[Illustration: BRASS, WEEKE.]
Presently we came to the little village of Wyke, now more frequently
called Weeke, a scattered collection of cottages, horse-pond, and tiny
church at the foot of another gentle hill. Not a soul was there to be
seen in Wyke. The churchyard gate was open, and also the door of the
church, a building consisting of nave and chancel only, with shingled,
extinguisher-like spirelet, and Norman south porch. But a mural brass,
directly opposite the door, drew our attention. On examination it
proved as interesting as that little effigy at Headbourne Worthy,
although of entirely different character. It is monumental, in a
sense, as its inscription commemorates a benefactor of the church and
his wife, but the figure above is not, as usual, a portrait effigy,
but, instead, a representation of Saint Christopher, shown in the
act of carrying the infant Saviour across a river. The figure is only
a few inches high, but carefully engraved, in 1498, a period shortly
before the decadence of this ancient art began; it is, moreover,
unique. Although the figure of Saint Christopher, that giant of the
pretty mediæval legend, was generally to be found in fresco upon the
walls of ancient churches, and was the subject of one of the earliest
wood-blocks, no other brass than this is known where his striking
figure is to be seen.
It is an open road, exposed and unshaded by trees, that leads from
Wyke, up Harestock Hill, along the Stockbridge road, and the half-mile
of avenue that shades the bye-road to Sparsholt was welcome indeed.
Sparsholt is a scattered village, on the road to nowhere in
particular, and deep set in agricultural stodginess. It has a pleasing
transitional-Norman church, with, attached to the living, the sinecure
holding of Lainston, half-a-mile distant, whose church has been
in ruins for generations. It was in those roofless walls that the
notorious Duchess of Kingston was secretly wedded. There is nothing in
the nature of a street to be found in Sparsholt village. Houses are few
and far between in its winding lanes, and but two shops, the chiefest
of them the post office, administer to the wants of this sleepy place.
At the post office may be purchased anything from a postage-stamp to
a Hampshire ham. The village water-supply is obtained from a well with
a remarkable contrivance for raising the buckets. A large broad drum
or wheel, some nine feet in diameter, is set above the well with the
bucket-ropes wound round it. To raise the buckets, you step inside
the drum and commence walking up its sides, resembling during the
performance nothing so much as a caged squirrel.
[Illustration: INTERIOR, SPARSHOLT CHURCH.]
XIII.
Shining with midsummer brilliancy, the sun heated the still air until
all movement was irksome, and energy became entirely out of the
question; so there was nothing for it but to recline in limp fashion
on a hay-rick beside the white and dusty road, lazily noting the
passers-by. Few indeed were they who passed down the village street--a
shepherd, with barking dog and unruly flock, making in their passage a
smother of dust that loaded the hedges with yet another white layer;
and, as afternoon wore on, a girl went with pitcher to the well. The
sound of buckets being lowered, and the splashing of water as they
were wound up, made one feel positively cool. Then came a dull booming
that now and again startled the stillness: gun practice off Spithead,
without doubt.
Then the sound of Winchester chimes echoed across the four miles
of intervening country, and we climbed down from our resting-place
and walked up through the village. We were dreadfully thirsty, and,
discovering a little inn, passed through the doorway into its stone
passage, cool and grateful after the glare outside. The beer was, not
to mince words, beastly; but we had a conversation with the rustics,
who were sitting or standing in the sanded parlour with striped and
coloured beer-mugs in their hands.
“Quiet place, this, sirs,” said one, by way of opening a talk.
“Yes,” said my companion, “it seems so; is it always like this?”
“Well, yes, ’tis, in a manner o’ speakin’, an’ yet ’tisn’t, if so be ye
can onderstand me. Leastways, ’tis always quiet like to toun-folk like
yourselves; but we has our randys now an’ than, hain’t we, neighbours?”
“Ay, that we has.”
“D’ye mind Jubilee time?” A general laugh followed this inquiry, but to
us strangers the allusion was cryptic, and provoked no smile.
But there was one dissentient; he was not a native of these parts.
“Randys,” quoth he, “ne’er a one of ’ee has seen such rollickings as we
uns used to have up to Amport.” Here one of the company stage-whispered
to us, hand to mouth, that “Will’m Benjafield was a old, understanding
man, as comed from Andover way.”
“Ay,” said our ancient, “I mind well enow the time when the gr’t house
to Amport were open house, as ye may say. ’Twas in the old Markis o’
Winchester’s young days. They’m a old ancient fam’ly, the Paulets:
ye can see their three golden daggerds on the carving o’ Winchester
Guildhall clock to this day. But ’tis many a long day sence the
feastin’s and drinkin’s to Amport House. ’Tis small beer now, ’stead
o’ good yale, an’ that _do_ make a man’s stummick to wamble tarrible,
sure-ly. I’d ’low the zilliest gawk-hammer in them there days drunk
better liquor nor the best o’ you uns in these here, an’ the raggedest
jack-o’-lent had a crust an’ cheese for the asking o’ it, an’ suthin
better nor a tankard o’ swipes to swill his gullet wi’. ’Twas a bit
an’ drap anywhen ye were plazed to ax fort. What dosta say, stunpoll?”
“Why, granfer,” said the young man thus unceremoniously addressed, “I
was jest a-hoping you made as good usings o’ yer opportunities as we
uns would an we had the chance.”
This was a good enough hint for us. We called for ale for the whole
company.
“I’ll tell ’ee,” said “granfer,” laying one hand on my sleeve, while
the other carefully described circles with his brimming beer-mug, “I’ll
tell ’ee suthin o’ those times when the gran’ company was to the old
Markis’s, an’ the huntin’ o’ the fox went arn, with the harses jumpin’
an the harns a-blown’; by gollikins, ’twas times, I tell ’ee. But they
was over full rathe; they went the pace too quickly for their pockuts,
d’ye see; the folks all went away, the harses sold, till there were
scarcely a pair left to whinnick in the big stables. But the Markis, a
proud one he wur, wi’ the devil’s own temper, an’ he went a-huntin’ as
if he warn’t head an’ heels in debt; an’ they _did_ say the harse he
rode warn’t rightly his’n, if all folk’s had their money paid ’em.
“Howsomdever, ’twas one marning he went to the meet at Quarley, an’
’twas vine sport they had that day, as I see’d myself from the knap.
An’ ’twas all the talk o’ the county how the Markis quarrelled wi’
the new Squire, as didn’t rightly know how to ride to hounds. Ye see,
’a was a man who’d been in business all ’a’s life, an’ had bought the
Markis’s land, as ’a was obliged to sell it, piece by piece, an so the
Markis hated him.