SAINTS and POETS and DEAD GUYS in WINCHESTER

Winchester is great! There's lots to see and do, with beautiful paths, countryside, city walks, history, shopping. It has a charming, human feel. Let's see some of it following in the footsteps of religious pilgrims and John Keats.

I STOOD tip-toe upon a little hill,
The air was cooling, and so very still,
That the sweet buds which with a modest pride
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,
Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems,
Had not yet lost those starry diadems
Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.
The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,

Oh modee oh doh... 

Sing it! "Winchester Cathedral, you're bringing me down....

Winchester, once the seat of Anglo-Saxon and Norman royal power, where England’s pagan monarchy first became Christians. In 635, Cynegils, king of the West Saxons, was baptized here. Just over a decade later, his son Cenwalh built the first Christian church in Winchester, the heart of Anglo-Saxon Wessex. This Cathedral, housed the throne (cathedra) of a bishop who held sway over a huge diocese that stretched from the English Channel to the river Thames. Winchester ruled! 

Called the Old Minster, this was now the most important royal church in Anglo-Saxon England. It was the burial place for some of the earliest kings of Wessex, including Alfred the Great.

With its shrine to St Swithun and tomb of Alfred the Great, Winchester was the first principal place of pilgrimage. Later Becket’s shrine at Canterbury became more important and pilgrims would have visited both. Alfred, who died in 899, was initially buried at Winchester but was subsequently moved to another church to be alongside his wife and children, and all were later re-interred at Hyde Abbey  in 1110.

 St Swithin  supposedly performed just one miracle during his lifetime - making an old lady's eggs whole again after workmen smashed them while building a church.

St Swithun was Bishop of Winchester from 853 to sometime between 862 and 865. Swithin is derived from the Old English word for "strong" and St Swithin's symbols are raindrops and apples. As he lay on his deathbed St Swithin asked to be buried outside the Old Minster, in a lowly grave where his body would be trodden and rained on.

More than a century later in 971, Winchester monks removed his remains to an elaborate shrine inside the cathedral where pilgrims flocked, believing his bones to have miraculous healing properties.

But legend has it that St Swithin wasn't happy about his body being moved. On the day of the removal, ferocious and violent rain storms arrived lasting 40 days and nights which apparently represented his displeasure. According to tradition, whatever the weather is like on that day - whether rainy or sunny - it will continue for the next 40 days and 40 nights. Sort of a saintly groundhog.

St Swithun's day if thou dost rain

For forty days it will remain

St Swithun's day if thou be fair

For forty days 'twill rain nae mare

Jane Austen's Tomb

A Rose For Jane

Winchester is a very important site for pilgrims, Christians and historians. 

Jane Austen was buried here in 1817. She's become big, seeing as the new ten pound note has her image on it. 

More importantly a figure is Stephen Gardiner, I hope he didn't look like this! 

Gardiner was Bishop of Winchester in 1529-1555. In 1554 he married Prince Phillip of Spain to Queen Mary Tudor, the only surviving child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. She was known as 'Bloody Mary' for her persecution of Protestants in a vain attempt to restore Catholicism in England.

Anywho... Stephen studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (I was there!) , afterwards he went on to work for Cardinal Wolsey as secretary. In 1527, Gardiner accompanied Wolsey on a diplomatic mission to France to gain the French King’s support for the King’s Great Matter, his wish to divorce Catherine of Aragon.

Poor Stephen!

 Gardiner assisted the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, in pronouncing the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon null and void and in 1535 he was one of the bishops asked to vindicate Henry VIII’s new title “Supreme Head of the Church of England, something which he did by writing his treatise “De vera obedientia” (Concerning True Obedience) , in which he argued that rulers were entitled to supremacy in their own country’s churches and that the pope had no legitimate power over other churches.

 He crowned Mary I Queen of England at her coronation at Westminster Abbey on the 1st October 1553 and helped Mary to restore Catholicism and, ironically, overturn the annulment of her parents’ marriage, making her legitimate. He was also instrumental in the marriage negotiations between Mary and Philip II of Spain and married the couple at Winchester Cathedral in 1554.

He died of illness. 

In the Choir is a 12C tomb believed to be the remains of Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester : 1129-1171. Henry was King Stephen's brother and inspired the creation of the Winchester Bible. 

William Rufus was originally buried here in 1100 but moved. They sure liked to move people around.

So many great humans! 

By the way,  the last resting-place of the two great Saxon Kings, Alfred and Edward, is thought to be under the River Park Leisure Center Parking Lot.

The Mortuary Chests are thought to contain the mortal remains of some of the early Royal Families of Wessex and of England, and three bishops, among other artifacts . Some better known are 

Cynegils d:643, Cynewulf d:786, Ecbert d:839, Aethelwulf d: 858, Edmund Ironside d:1016, Cnut d:1035

Completed in the 16C, a mighty Cathedral, a thriving priory church, a healing place of pilgrimage, and the final resting place of West Saxon and Norman kings. It's glorious! 

There were very few electric lights and what lights there were simulated candlelight. The entire Choir was lit by blue bulbs , like evening and starlight. 

The Medieval Floor Tiles

Uncovered in the 1960's , this is an example of one of the finest 12C wall paintings in the country, with clearly visible images of Christ being taken down from the Cross and placed in his tomb.

The Norman Tower

The Genesis Illustration

On display is a page of the Genesis folio and the 483 page illustrated Winchester Bible, created between 1160 and 1175. Horribly, it is estimated that the manuscript incorporated the hides of some 250 calves. Nearly the entire manuscript is in the hand of a single scribe. Seeing this work gave me the shivers, to think one monk sat drawing these heavenly images by candlelight in his cold room and we can see it today! Did he hope or know his work would survive? Unbelievable. 

How Many Feet Trod These Steps?

Westgate

Winchester leaves me clues. Hidden away on the side of buildings are informative plaques. It's a game to find them.

Shopping and a Grouchy Wintonian, Must Be the Lack of Scones

A Great Place for Tea and Cake

The Butter Cross

The 900 year old Church of St Lawrence squeezed between buildings on a side road, is said to have been the chapel of William the Conqueror's palace (built 1069-70, destroyed 1141) 

Lunch at the Eclipse. Though the building is enticing  - 1540 - the inside is all 1960's. Still, it had a certain traditional charm, no piped music or fruit machines. 

Food was good. 

Of course it has a story! On 2 September 1685, Dame Alice Lisle stepped through an upstairs window of this ancient inn, placed her old and weary head upon a wooden block, and was beheaded.

She was sentenced to death at the infamous Bloody Assizes by the notorious ‘hanging Judge Jeffreys’, her crime to have given shelter to two rebels fleeing the bloody aftermath of the Monmouth uprising.

Jeffreys wanted her dragged through the streets of Winchester, and then burnt at the stake.

But King James II, fearful of the reaction of the people, commuted her sentence to a simple beheading.

And so her last night was spent in an upper room of The Eclipse, repose made impossible by the sounds of the scaffold being erected, hard against its walls.

Once the executioner had finished his bloody business, her body was conveyed to its final resting place in Ellingham churchyard.

The mournful cortege was followed by hundreds of ordinary men and women, walking silently in disapproval at her unjust fate.

Since then, Dame Alice Lisle has returned time and again to the timbered tavern where she spent that last troubled night.

Clothed in a grey woolen dress, she watches customers silently from the dark recesses.

Royal Oak Passage and the House

This building dates from 1050! In 1002, Emma, daughter of Richard Duke of Normandy, married Ethelred the Unready. As a present, the Duke gave her Winchester and Exeter ("Here , Darling, take these towns...") and the Manor of Goudbeyete or God Begot. The Manor is not part of the city. It made its own laws, extracted taxes separate from the mayor or the king. 

Emma outlived  Ethelred and her second husband Canute,and eventually her son Edward the Confessor came to the throne. When Emma died she willed the Manor of God Begot to "Christ, St Peter and St Swithin."  It's rights continued even through the Dissolution when Henry VIII took the Manor and its possessions. A few weeks later he had second thoughts and gave it back. It's believed the name means "The goods getter". It's now a store and still owned by the Cathedral.

Almshouses Still in Use Today

Now to walk with John Keats. Ode To Autumn, inspired by and written in Winchester, is one of the most celebrated and enduringly popular poems in English literature. 

Through letters, Keats  provides a plain guide to his stroll from the cathedral to the water meadows and St Cross, though precisely where Keats lodged in 1819 during his time in Winchester is unknown.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

At only 24, Keats suffered an agonizing death after his doctor wrongly diagnosed tuberculosis as stress.
He is buried in Rome. 

Starting at the Cathedral and on to Kings Gate.
The King's Gate, south of the Cathedral, stands on the site of the original Roman South Gate. The present building largely dates from around 1300 and straddles on the main route between the Castle and Bishop's Palace. It is unusual for having a tiny church within its upper floor which is still in service. 

Kingsgate

Cheney Court, formerly the Bishops' courthouse. This mid-15th century building adjoins the Priory or St. Swithun's Gate (of similar date) by which pilgrims entered the close having arrived at the King's Gate just outside. It incorporates the Porter's Lodge. 

Cheyney Court was the seat of the Bishop's secular power in Winchester, for part of it served as his Court-House. The Bishop of Winchester held judicial power over a large portion of the city in medieval times and continued to do so until 1835

St Swithin's Church at King's Gate

A plaque marks the house at No. 8 College Street where Jane Austen was to stay for less than two months. She rarely went out and her condition quickly declined.She died at her lodgings in 1817 and was buried in the Cathedral. 

Jane's House

The home of the present Bishop of Winchester, the one next door wasn't nice enough. 

The one next door. Wolvesey Castle  meaning "Wulfs Island"  has been the site of the Palace of the Bishops of Winchester since Saxon times. The present building is largely Norman in date. Originally built around 1110, it was greatly expanded, beautified and fortified by Prince Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester during the Civil War of King Stephen's reign ( Winchester Bible guy) . He was the most powerful man in the country at the time (even more so than his brother, the King) . In more peaceful centuries, the castle became a frequent lodging for Royal guests, Queen Mary Tudor and King Philip II of Spain stayed here before their wedding in the Cathedral. 

The Lovely Stroll Beside the Babbling River Itchen

St Catherine's - Iron Age Hill Fort , Another Day!

The ancient Hospital of St. Cross as founded as a men's retirement home  in the 1130s by Prince Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, and grandson of William the Conqueror. It remains a Christian almshouse for elderly men. Most of the buildings to be seen today date from the 15C.  Cardinal Henry Beaufort's  successors  still wear the magenta gowns of the 'Noble Order of Poverty,' while De Blois' brothers wear the black robes and cross of St. John.The most well-known tradition remaining from these far away times is the receiving of the Wayfarers' Dole. Knock on the door of the Porters Lodge and they will give you a piece of bread and a small cup of ale. I would have liked to have done this on the day I finished the walk, for I am a Wayfarer! 

Hospital of St Cross and Almhouse of Noble Poverty

The Porters Lodge

The Bell Inn Pub has the sign of the two orders of St Cross.I don't know why but it's interesting.

Keats would then walk back through the city, probably coughing the entire way. 

Busy Winchester - You Can Still Get a Medieval Vibe

Remains of the day and the end of the journey! 
Another pilgrimage draws to a close, nothing left now but packing up my little suitcase life and travel home. The trip is leaving me energized and mellow, with gratitude and an appreciation for simpler things and the happiness there is to be found everywhere. I've seen and learned so much it will take time to absorb it all. I'll miss my England. I know I'll see these pathways in my mind in the days to come, and will return.