WINCHESTER COLLEGE: THE OUTER GATEWAY FROM "ARCADIA"
Wykeham's idea in founding these two colleges was one for which he had no precedent before him, so that his design was to a large extent in the nature of an experiment. His idea, of course, was to enable those who proceeded from the Winchester to the Oxford College to receive a systematic and continuous education. Where Wykeham led, others were not long in following. Two of his successors in the see of Winchester, Waynflete and Fox, gave to Oxford the beautiful colleges of Magdalen and Corpus Christi respectively. Archbishop Chichele, one of Wykeham's first scholars, built St. Bernard's College, now St. John Baptist's, which he gave to the Cistercians before its completion; and later in life he founded the College of All Souls, while in his native village of Higham Ferrers, Northants, he built and endowed a school, bede-house, and church, which are among some of the loveliest pieces of building we possess. Henry VI made himself intimately acquainted with the works of Wykeham, and copied them for his two colleges of Eton, and King's College, Cambridge. Until Wykeham's time, schools had been under or connected with monastic houses; now they were distinct foundations, with priests still as masters, but priests secular and not religious. Wykeham was, indeed, the pioneer of the public-school system, of which, with all its shortcomings, England is so justly proud.
Each of the bishop's colleges took about six years in building, and that at Oxford was the first to be finished. It must have been a proud day for Winchester when, on March 28, 1393, the "seventy faithful boys", headed by their master, came in procession from St. Giles's Hill, where they had been temporarily housed, and, all chanting psalms, entered into possession of their fair college.
The buildings have been but little altered since their founder's day, and extend now, as then, on the south side of the Close, and along the bank of the Itchen. They consist mainly of two quadrangles, in the first of which, entered from College Street by a gateway, are the Warden's house and other offices. Here is the brewhouse, quite unaltered; but the Warden's house has absorbed the old bakehouse, slaughterhouse, and butcher's room. Over the second archway are figures of the Virgin, with Gabriel on her right, and Wykeham kneeling on her left. Here was a room for the Warden, from which he could see all who entered or left the college; and here also is the site of the old penthouse under which the scholars used to perform their ablutions, and which they called "Moab". The old Society comprised the Warden, ten Fellows, three Chaplains, sixteen Queristers, and seventy scholars. The boys, the chaplains, and the choristers lived within the inner quadrangle, the northern side of which is formed by the chapel and the refectory. The original chapel, with the exception of the beautiful fan-groining of its roof, was much defaced in the seventeenth century, but was restored in the nineteenth, when a new reredos was added. The refectory remains practically untouched, and has a roof enriched with some beautiful carved woodwork, the painted heads of kings and bishops, and some great mullioned windows. Over the buttery is the audit-room, hung with ancient and rare tapestries, and containing a large chest known as Wykeham's money box. The original schoolroom was in the basement, and has long been put to other uses. The chantry, the beautiful cloisters, and the chapel tower were all built after the founder's death, but he provided a wooden bell tower, which stood away from the chapel, so that the main building should not be injured by the vibration of the bells. The remaining portions are mostly modern, and the foundation has naturally been much enlarged since Wykeham's day, the last addition being the gateway in Kingsgate Street, erected as a memorial to the many Wykehamists who fell in the South African War.
On the wall of a passage adjoining the kitchen is a singular painting, supposed to be emblematical of a "trusty servant", compounded of a man, a hog, a deer, and an ass. The explanatory words beneath it are attributed to Dr. Christopher Jonson, headmaster from 1560 to 1571.
With the completion of Winchester College, Wykeham turned his attention to the Cathedral, although he was then seventy years of age. He lived to see his munificence bearing good fruit, and his foundations flourishing in reputation and usefulness; so that when he lay down to die, on September 27, 1404, in his palace of Bishops' Waltham, he could look back to a long life spent in the service of his Maker. The funeral procession moved slowly along the ten miles that separated palace from Cathedral through crowds of people mourning his loss. At the Cathedral door the prior met the procession, and the great bishop-builder was laid to rest in the beautiful chantry he had himself prepared. Four days before his death he made and signed his will, in which he bestowed gifts and legacies with the liberality that was so marked a characteristic of his life. That crowds of poor would attend his obsequies he was probably aware, for to each poor person seeking a bounty he bequeathed fourpence, "for the love of God and his soul's health". To the Cathedral, on which he had expended so much of his genius, he left money for its completion; and bequeathed to it many precious things, including a cross of gold in which was a piece of the "Tree of the Lord". Henry IV was forgiven a debt of five hundred pounds, and was to have a pair of silver-gilt basins, ornamented with double roses, which were probably given to Wykeham by Edward III, as a special mark of his favour. So we take leave of this master builder and munificent bishop, whose motto "Manners makyth man" is known the world over. The inscription on his tomb tells us of his works, but Wykeham needs no inscription so long as the stones of the Cathedral hold together, and his two fair colleges raise their buttressed walls beside the waters of the Isis and the Itchen.
