One of the oldest of Winchester Parish Churches, of Norman date. Cheesehill—a corruption of Chesil—a word still surviving in Chesil Beach, near Portland—denotes the dry or gravelly strand along the bank of the Itchen, and has no connection with cheese. Cheesehill Street, though somewhat ‘slummy,’ is very picturesque and contains many interesting old houses.
Later on there was a second dedication. Altogether it was a period of splendid and impressive ceremonial.
Æthelwold’s monks displayed their zeal in another channel. In both monasteries scriptoria were established, and Winchester became the centre of an unrivalled school of MS. illumination. The MS. treasures of Æthelwold’s monks may still be seen in the British Museum, in Winchester Cathedral Library, at the Bodleian, and at Rouen. Loveliest of all is the priceless ‘Benedictional of St. Æthelwold,’ the glory of the Chatsworth collection, a MS. of rare beauty and interest, for it preserves for us the figure and features of St. Æthelwold himself as well as some of the architectural details of the new cathedral he had erected. How the ‘Benedictional’ came into the possession of the Cavendish family is unknown. Is it too much to hope that later on the day may come when such a treasure may be restored to its natural home—the Cathedral Library at Winchester?
Æthelwold’s last work for Winchester we have already mentioned—the rebuilding of the monastery. He transformed the channels of Itchen, and brought its purifying waters through the city and the monastery by fresh courses.
Quoting again from Wulfstan:—
Hucque
Dulcia piscosae flumina traxit aquae
Successusque laci penetrant secreta domorum
Mundantes locum murmure coenobium,
Here great Æthelwold led sweet fishful courses of water.
And murmurs of mingling streams pervade the recesses monastic.
Such, then, was Æthelwold. In 984 he died, and was buried in the crypt of the cathedral he had erected. The place of his sepulture is now unknown. There are few among the makers of Winchester greater than he.
We have dealt with this era of constructive effort as if the full design was brought to completion in Æthelwold’s lifetime. Such was not indeed the case, and it was left to Ælfeah, his successor in the episcopate, to actually finish the building schemes inaugurated by his predecessor. But it was Æthelwold, not Ælfeah, whose creation it really was, and Ælfeah (St. Alphege) will always be remembered more feelingly as the Archbishop of Canterbury, martyred by the Danes, rather than as the completer of Æthelwold’s great master-work in Winchester.