“I hope that they have been steps to heaven in every sense,” said Mr. Hertford.
We left the little dwelling very favourably impressed with the old lady, and were surprised and sorry when we heard that she was obliged to be in receipt of parish relief.[95]
Passing by Bishop Morley’s almshouses for matrons we regained the High Street, and we now proposed to make a circuit to look at the streets on the other side.
Decay.
Winchester declined greatly in Henry III.’s time, and Edward I. removed the royal residence to London, and although at Wykeham’s solicitation Edward III. made it one of the chief wool marts in England, he added another disappointment when he removed the “staple” to Calais. From a dismal complaint presented to Henry VI. by the inhabitants, it would appear that the greater part of the town was then almost a heap of ruins. It states that the “Desolation of the saide powere Citee is so grete and yerelye fallyng for there is such decaye that withowte graciose comforte of the kynge oure Soweraigne Lord the Maire and the Bailiffs must of necessitee cesse to delyver uppe the citee and the keyes into the Kynges Handes.” Seventeen parish churches and 997 houses were void, and within eighty years Jewry Street had fallen from eighty houses to two, Fleshmonger Street from 140 to two, Colebroke Street from 160 to sixteen, Calpe Street from 100 to six, Gold Street (Southgate Street) from 140 to eight, Gar Street from 100 to none. In its palmy days, soon after the Conquest, the city extended to St. Cross, Wyke, Worthy, and Magdalen Hill, and in Henry I.’s reign the population was about 20,000, but so greatly did it decrease that all the progress of this century has only just brought it back to that number. It is said that there were once 173 churches and chapels here, probably an over-statement.
In Edward III.’s time there were 44, among them All Saints in Vineis,[96] St. Nicholas extra Pisces, St. Martin’s in Fosseto, and St. Peter’s in Macellis. Now there are eight; Bishop Fox disestablished many because there were no funds to sustain the clergy.
The Penthouse.
Proceeding up the High Street, we crossed into St. Peter’s Street by “God Begot” House. This was a fashionable quarter in the Stuart days. The Royal Hotel stands on a site where was a nunnery twenty years since. We come to the office of the Probate Court, a new looking building, which has old walls. At the south side of it we see a leaden pipe with E.G. 1684, on it—supposed to stand for Eleanor Gwynne. An old staircase remains at the top of this house. The original building was much larger, the centre has been taken down, but the other wing remains. We may gain some idea of how handsome it once was by looking at the next ivy-mantled mansion—a structure of about the same date, with a fine staircase.