Relics.
The curiosities are not limited to books.[91] Here are four rings—one with a large square sapphire, found in the disputed tomb of Rufus or De Blois. Another with an oval sapphire belonged to Fox; and a third was Gardiner’s, engraved with a helmeted head, not unsuitable to such a belligerent bishop. Here is the rusty ring, about three inches wide, which the Dean lately found when excavating on the site of St. Swithun’s tomb—it may be that of the smith’s dream. In a case at the other end of the room are other treasures. Here are coins and a silver penny of Cnut, found on the north-west of the Cathedral. Would it could speak and tell us the strange language it has heard, and the scenes it has witnessed as it passed about among churls, thanes, and monks! Here is a case of relics found in “Rufus’s” tomb, containing some of the seven braids of Norman pattern which were found in it. One is well preserved. How exquisitely delicate! It is not a quarter of an inch in width. They embroidered finely then, and we hear that the young swells of the period were almost effeminate in their attire. Silken robes with gold borders descending to the feet must have looked quite “Celestial.”
We emerged from the Cathedral by the south door. The green sward before us did not exist before Henry VIII.’s time, as the space was filled by a “garth” surrounded with cloisters. The inferiority of the ornamentation of the Cathedral on this side when compared with the other is due to the junction with these buildings. Bishop Horne destroyed them, because he wished to be in keeping with the times. Cromwell demolished nine prebendal houses and the deanery.
We now passed through the tunnel at the extremity of the south transept, and proceeding beyond the eastern end of the Cathedral saw a wall in front of us bounding the precincts, and in it a small arch now filled up. Through this we fancy we can see the piquant figure of Nell Gwynne passing, for it is said to have been made to enable her to have access to the Deanery, where Charles was wont to stay. When Ken was a prebendary here he stoutly refused to give up his house to her, and it is one of many instances of Charles’ good humour that when the bishopric of Bath and Wells fell vacant, he appointed “the good little man who refused his lodging to poor Nell.” There was a small building (long removed) put up for her to the south of the Deanery, called Nell Gwynne’s Tower, but she had a house through the arch above mentioned. Until lately its broad staircases were the admiration of the people in Colebrook Street, but it has disappeared within the last few years, and its site is occupied by an establishment of chimney sweeps! Thus:—
“Golden lads and lasses must
Like chimney-sweepers come to dust.”
Returning to the cloisters’ site we observe on the east some ruinous remains of the chapter-house. It was twenty-five or thirty feet wide by twice that in length, an ancient form which existed before the more beautiful circular chapter-houses were adopted.
The Deanery