| [46] | Called of Winchester from having been born there. |
| [47] | These town ditches were let to different parties, the grass being of some value. In the Black Book we find, in Henry IV.’s reign, a grant by the Mayor of Winchester, giving to the Abbot and Convent of the Church of St. Barnabas, of Hyde, a certain part of a ditch called Walldych, extending from the Northern Bridge to a certain place called the Bowe, where flows Kyngesbroke. The convent to resign all claim to the fishing in the ditch, and give free ingress to a certain part at the end of the bridge called Northbrigge, for nets and all instruments for cleaning. |
| [48] | In the Pat. Rolls, 43 Ed. III., there is an order for towers and walls to be repaired. |
| [49] | Near this, at the commencement of the Andover Road, a Roman coin of the year 340 was found at a depth of sixteen feet. The staple grounds were within the walls here. |
| [50] | The monks of St. Swithun had “Viridaria” or pleasure grounds outside the precincts. |
| [51] | Founded by the brethren of St. Swithun’s for fifteen nursing sisters. |
| [52] | Wykeham seems to have had a peculiar reverence for St. Thomas à Becket. The election of scholars into New College and Winchester School was to take place every year between the festival of the Translation of St. Thomas à Becket (July 7), and the 1st of October. |
| [53] | There are here also three Anglo-Saxon charters, and in the Audit-room some fifteenth-century tapestries and the coats of mail worn by the warden’s escort. |
| [54] | His father’s name was John Longe, perhaps from his stature. |
| [55] | Does this similarity account for the proverbial good luck of the horse shoe? |
| [56] | That is, Richmond, where Wykeham improved the palace. |
| [57] | When Henry VI. founded Eton on the plan of Winchester, Wayneflete (the headmaster here and afterwards bishop) migrated with five fellows to the new foundation. |
| [58] | Wykehamists are proud of this gallant soldier who fell recently, fighting in the Soudan, and have erected a memorial gateway in his honour. |
FOURTH DAY.
Jewry Street and the Jews — Hyde Abbey — St. Grimbald — Destruction of Tombs — Headbourne Worthy — King’s Worthy — The Nun’s Walk.
The west side of the George Hotel is in Jewry Street, the ghetto, a name recalling the wealth, rapacity, and persecutions of this peculiar people. They managed to obtain property and to increase in this city, apparently in the thirteenth century, previous to which this street was called Scowertene Street. In 1232 a story was circulated that a boy had been tortured and murdered by them.
“Invented, perhaps, by their debtors,” suggested Mr. Hertford.
In Henry III.’s reign there was an order that the Jews in Winchester should be taxed according to their ability, as in London; but when the barons sacked the town they are said to have extirpated them. In 1268, however, one of them was made a member of the Merchants’ Guild here, the only fact, as far as I know, that corroborates the statement of Richard of Devizes, that “Winchester alone, the people being prudent, spared its vermin.” We have seen what became of “Aaron’s land,” and that of the “son of Abraham” did not escape confiscation, for we find that in Edward I.’s reign—“Thomas de Palmere was granted a messuage in the great street of Winchester, valued at four shillings a year. It had belonged to Benedict, son of Abraham the Jew, and had been forfeited to the King.”[59] At a Parliament, held here in 1290, the Jews were expelled from the country.
Proceeding up the street, we pass on the right-hand side the old stable in which “Master Say” was tortured in the time of the Civil War. A little farther on, if we look up over the shops on the other side, we shall plainly trace the outlines of a large building. This was once the city gaol, built by James I., rebuilt in 1771, and the central portion of it, where there is now an ironmonger’s shop, was the governor’s house about twenty years since, and boasted a haunted chamber, in which one of the debtors committed suicide. It was afterwards used for the Museum until the Guildhall was built in 1873, and the gaol and bridewell were removed to the Romsey Road. Farther on stands the Corn Exchange and Cattle Market.
Hyde Street.