Norwich had several important hospitals. Outside the Magdalen gates stood the Magdalen Hospital, founded by Bishop Herbert, the first bishop. It was a house for lepers, and some portions of the Norman chapel still exist in a farm-building by the roadside. The far-famed St. Giles's Hospital in Bishopsgate Street is an ancient foundation, erected by Bishop Walter Suffield in 1249 for poor chaplains and other poor persons. It nearly vanished at the Reformation era, like so many other kindred institutions, but Henry VIII and Edward VI granted it a new charter. The poor clergy were, however, left out in the cold, and the benefits were confined to secular folk. For the accommodation of its inmates the chancel of the church was divided by a floor into an upper and a lower storey, and this arrangement still exists, and you can still admire the picturesque ivy-clad tower, the wards with cosy ingle-nooks at either end and cubicles down the middle, the roof decorated with eagles, deemed to be the cognizance of Queen Anne of Bohemia, wife of Richard II, the quaint little cloister, and above all, the excellent management of this grand institution, the "Old Man's Hospital," as it is called, which provides for the necessities of 150 old folk, whose wants are cared for by a master and twelve nurses.
Inscription on the Hospital, King's Lynn
Let us travel far and visit another charming almshouse, Abbot's Hospital, at Guildford, which is an architectural gem and worthy of the closest inspection. It was founded by Archbishop Abbot in 1619, and is a noble building of mellowed brick with finely carved oak doors, graceful chimneys with their curious "crow-rests," noble staircases, interesting portraits, and rare books, amongst which is a Vinegar Bible. The chapel with its Flemish windows showing the story of Jacob and Esau, and oak carvings and almsbox dated 1619, is especially attractive. Here the founder retired in sadness and sorrow after his unfortunate day's hunting in Bramshill Park, where he accidentally shot a keeper, an incident which gave occasion to his enemies to blaspheme and deride him. Here the Duke of Monmouth was confined on his way to London after the battle of Sedgemoor. The details of the building are worthy of attention, especially the ornamented doors and doorways, the elaborate latches, beautifully designed and furnished with a spring, and elegant casement-fasteners. Guildford must have had a school of great artists of these window-fasteners. Near the hospital there is a very interesting house, No. 25 High Street, now a shop, but formerly the town clerk's residence and the lodgings of the judges of assize; no better series in England of beautifully designed window-fasteners can be found than in this house, erected in 1683; it also has a fine staircase like that at Farnham Castle, and some good plaster ceilings resembling Inigo Jones's work and probably done by his workmen.
The good town of Abingdon has a very celebrated hospital founded in 1446 by the Guild of the Holy Cross, a fraternity composed of "good men and true," wealthy merchants and others, which built the bridge, repaired roads, maintained a bridge priest and a rood priest, and held a great annual feast at which the brethren consumed as much as 6 calves, 16 lambs, 80 capons, 80 geese, and 800 eggs. It was a very munificent and beneficent corporation, and erected these almshouses for thirteen poor men and the same number of poor women. That hospital founded so long ago still exists. It is a curious and ancient structure in one storey, and is denoted Christ's Hospital. One of our recent writers on Berkshire topography, whose historical accuracy is a little open to criticism, gives a good description of the building:—
"It is a long range of chambers built of mellow brick and immemorial oak, having in their centre a small hall, darkly wainscoted, the very table in which makes a collector sinfully covetous. In front of the modest doors of the chambers inhabited by almsmen and almswomen runs a tiny cloister with oak pillars, so that the inmates may visit one another dryshod in any weather. Each door, too, bears a text from the Old or New Testament. A more typical relic of the old world, a more sequestered haven of rest, than this row of lowly buildings, looking up to the great church in front, and with its windows opening on to green turf bordered with flowers in the rear, it could not enter into the heart of man to imagine." [60]
We could spend endless time in visiting the old almshouses in many parts of the country. There is the Ford's Hospital in Coventry, erected in 1529, an extremely good specimen of late Gothic work, another example of which is found in St. John's Hospital at Rye. The Corsham Almshouses in Wiltshire, erected in 1663, are most picturesque without, and contain some splendid woodwork within, including a fine old reading-desk with carved seat in front. There is a large porch with an immense coat-of-arms over the door. In the region of the Cotswolds, where building-stone is plentiful, we find a noble set of almshouses at Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire, a gabled structure near the church with tall, graceful chimneys and mullioned windows, having a raised causeway in front protected by a low wall. Ewelme, in Oxfordshire, is a very attractive village with a row of cottages half a mile long, which have before their doors a sparkling stream dammed here and there into watercress beds. At the top of the street on a steep knoll stand church and school and almshouses of the mellowest fifteenth-century bricks, as beautiful and structurally sound as the pious founders left them. These founders were the unhappy William de la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk, and his good wife the Duchess Alice. The Duke inherited Ewelme through his wife Alice Chaucer, a kinswoman of the poet, and "for love of her and the commoditie of her landes fell much to dwell in Oxfordshire," and in 1430-40 was busy building a manor-place of "brick and Tymbre and set within a fayre mote," a church, an almshouse, and a school. The manor-place, or "Palace," as it was called, has disappeared, but the almshouse and school remain, witnesses of the munificence of the founders. The poor Duke, favourite minister of Henry VI, was exiled by the Yorkist faction, and beheaded by the sailors on his way to banishment. Twenty-five years of widowhood fell to the bereaved duchess, who finished her husband's buildings, called the almshouses "God's House," and then reposed beneath one of the finest monuments in England in the church hard by. The almshouses at Audley End, Essex, are amongst the most picturesque in the country. Such are some of these charming homes of rest that time has spared.
The old people who dwell in them are often as picturesque as their habitations. Here you will find an old woman with her lace-pillow and bobbins, spectacles on nose, and white bonnet with strings, engaged in working out some intricate lace pattern. In others you will see the inmates clad in their ancient liveries. The dwellers in the Coningsby Hospital at Hereford, founded in 1614 for old soldiers and aged servants, had a quaint livery consisting of "a fustian suit of ginger colour, of a soldier-like fashion, and seemly laced; a cloak of red cloth lined with red baize and reaching to the knees, to be worn in walks and journeys, and a gown of red cloth, reaching to the ankle, lined also with baize, to be worn within the hospital." They are, therefore, known as Red Coats. The almsmen of Ely and Rochester have cloaks. The inmates of the Hospital of St. Cross wear as a badge a silver cross potent. At Bottesford they have blue coats and blue "beef-eater" hats, and a silver badge on the left arm bearing the arms of the Rutland family—a peacock in its pride, surmounted by a coronet and surrounded by a garter.