By the kindness of Miss Heberden we were allowed to inspect this interesting house, and having viewed the kitchen, ascended by a fine old oak staircase to a spacious room, now used as a bedroom, lined with that small square panelling which dates from the seventeenth century. Here are long, low, many-mullioned windows, with stained glass, representing the arms of Fox, Wykeham, and others. Over the mantel-piece is an elaborate piece of oak carving. In the south gable end there is a beautiful rose window, traces of a larger one, and of the original entrance—the present door being in an old window. On the east are Early English windows.
Dome Alley.
Close to this house there is a road running westward. This is Dome Alley. On either side of it stand red brick houses, some two hundred years old, half concealed in luxuriant ivy. We observed grapes and other ornamental designs on the leaden pipes; on the right hand side the “Rose and Crown,” and on the left the “Cross Keys.” It appears that emblematic ornaments representing the Church and King went alternately along the fronts of the houses.
“I suppose the ‘Rose and Crown’ represented the English monarchy?” said Miss Hertford.
“The rose,” I replied, “was an ancient emblem of England; some have supposed the name Albion came not from the chalk cliffs, but from the white rose which flowers freely over the country.”
Adjoining the Close gateway we observed a large building with gables of “timber-crossed antiquity,” and found that beneath them was an apartment where the bishop’s “Cheyney” Court was held. Here are a curious old beam in the ceiling, and the royal arms, which were over the judge. This was the Court for the Soke, the prison of which we had already seen. Old men remember the last case tried here—a corn dispute from West Meon. The judge sat on the side near the porter’s lodge. The overhanging gables may be earlier than Elizabeth; the rooms beneath them have been used for Cathedral purposes.
From this point we made a little excursion, passing under Kingsgate, with its chapel and ancient doors, into Kingsgate Street to look at the red-brick gables of Mr. Toye’s house—dating from about 1600. About seven years ago some excavations were made through St. Swithun’s Street, the Kingsgate, and Kingsgate Street, which brought to light the stratum of a road at a depth of five feet. This must have belonged to some epoch of considerable civilization, perhaps even to that of Alfred and the saint who gave the name. The floor of the porter’s lodge at the Close Gate is three steps below the present surface.
Monks’ Fare.
Hence we retraced our steps through the precincts; and here, as we stand on the ground for centuries trodden by religious men whose “good deeds have been interred with their bones,” let me call attention to the little that remains concerning them, if it be merely their domestic arrangements. Dean Kitchin has with great perseverance and success deciphered a roll of regulations for the monastery in the fourteenth century, which had been rendered indistinct by the thumbing of many monks, and by a libation of their beer. Here we find directions as to dietary. The prior was to provide beer, bread, salt, wine, butter, and cheese. Nearly every day there was to be a large maynard of cheese (32 lbs.), and the anniversary of the deposition of the body of St. Swithun was to be honoured with an additional cheese, so that the monks of Hyde as well of St. Swithun might celebrate the day; and on the Translation of the saint’s body sufficient cheese was to be provided for those monks and other religious and lay people. The cheese was to be really good, if not it was to be returned. Psalm singing was regarded as thirsty work. The precentor and his men were to have a puncard (cask) of ale every Saturday, and another to cheer them whenever they sang the melancholy “Placebo,” or funeral service. They were to have a pitcher of wine as well as a puncard of good ale whenever they did the great O. At first we might suppose that this was synonymous with “doing the heavy,” but the dean tells us that, on the contrary, it generally meant doing nothing at all. But here it signified singing before the great festivals certain short prayers, beginning with “O,” the first of which was “O Sapientia.” On the Deposition of the body of St. Æthelwold, the keeper of the refectory was to carry round at dinner time the “Cup of St. Æthelwold,” first to the brethren in the refectory, then into the infirmary to the sick, and then to the table of the bled (a considerable number), and finally to the prior and such honoured guests as were with him. It is said that they were all to kiss the goblet; but we should have thought that the old conventuals would scarcely have expressed such sentiments as—
“Drink to me only with thine eyes,