Saturday, September 24, 1831 Travel Journal

1831

September

Saturday 24

8 3/4 

Margin: Bells to the horses in Winchester

Breakfast from 10 10/.. to 10 3/4 – Out at 11 – through the market. 

The cathedral –

Gothic stone screen about six years ago – Taking in lantern tower and one arch of nave – Transepts somehow appear lost –

The church in beautiful order –

Organ on left side going to the altar – by the dean’s wish against that of almost all the rest –

Chancel with very handsome shrines behind the altar, then the lady’s chapel where Philip and Mary were married –

Very fine view from the organ being on the side since latter part of reign of Charles 1 –

2 bronze figures of Charles and James in the screen –

The church all newly done up, the work people only out about 3 years ago –

25 minutes in cathedral and 1/2 hour going to the top.  250 steps, the last about a 100 very narrow and bad –

Not large town – Barracks, the shell built for Charles 2 – and College –

St. John’s room the corporation meeting and dining room and race ball room in a shabbyish looking white house belonging corporation. 

East and West windows painted –

Fine stone roof of nave and ditto fanned in stone of choir –

Painting by West over altar 40 or 50 years ago – Christ raising Lazarus –

Round the Cathedral – Then to the college founded by Bishop Wickham –

200 students, of which 70 on the foundation, costing themselves about £50 or 60 a year – Commoners about £120 –

Very pretty small chapel – Beautifully painted windows – Altar window the tree of Jesse and pedigree of our Saviour – Restored very well as all the other windows by Evans of Shrewsbury, now the best modern painter on glass –

Painting (Annunciation) in 1727 by Lemoine over altar –

Organ at the side –

Cloister with pretty small library in centre – with good little brown figure of William of Wickham given by Earl of Bute.

Then tea, the dining room – 3 days a week broken victuals given to jail 3 days and 24 poor women chosen – They get a gallon beer each – Use a logs head a day –12 loaves bread, two measures of oatmeal, and one of salt divided among them –

This is the nursery of New College Oxford – 16 choristers wait on the boys – None but the 18 prefects have other than Frenchers, and they find their plates –

Never go into the town but when taken by their friends.  Gates locked at 6 in summer and 8 in winter.  Can dine out every Sunday fortnight from 1 to 3 –

Brew 20 Hogsheads or 20 days consumption at once – The brewer has the grains and yeast and so much money for his trouble –

The old ivy covered ruins are of Cardinal Wolsey’s palace – But the bishop always lived at Farham Castle 20 miles from here –

Figure of a good servant over kitchen door.  Pig’s head to denote not to be nice in diet, stag’s feet to be quick in an errand, etc. etc., in old costume, long lappelled coat and waistcoat – They have no date of the figure, but always knew it –

Away from college at 12 50/.. – Walked round the outside of town wall? by the waterside and came in at the bottom of High Street.  Walked to the top of it and through the gate – Market day –

Picturesque nice town – went into shop near the gate and bought of the college emblematic Servant – The man intelligent.  Had some prints to sell 6 numbers, views of Winchester 18/. the work – A sort of builder said his architectural taste made him visolce the organ was so placed in the cathedral, but the dean had had a sharp contention about it – But as the late Lord Liverpool said, why build a fine room and keep the windows always shut –

Gothic Cross in High Street very picturesque – and some portico-like rows at Chester –

Off from Winchester at 1 40/.. – In 10 minutes, at St. Croix –

Pretty chapel – Saxon – Founded 1129 by Henry de Blois, brother of King Stephen – Restored or added to by Cardinal Beaufort, who built the hall in 1446 –

Lord Guildford master – 13 pensioners – Wear a gown and white cross – Now allowed to have their wives –

4 meat dinners a week – Runs about 8 pounds of meat each a day – and a gallon of ? and 3 quarts of beer a day –

Give away daily 2 loaves of bread of 21 ounces each and 8 quarts of beer to all poor tradespeople, gipsies and beggars

Very pretty Saxon chapel – (the porter distributes ad libitum) – Regular Greek cross – Saxon – Much dogtooth bordering – Picture by Albert Durer, a benediction by Simeon – Saint Catherine and Agonis on the doors of the picture –

Square hearth in middle of hall – Where fire on the 5 gala days about 2 miles round hoop for fender –

25 minutes there

Brew 9 gallons to the bushel and 80 hogsheads a year – very weak beer –

Very pretty, neat quadrangular court, each has an apartment and garden – the clergyman lives in the court – has about £80 a year but does other duty – The porter, 1 of the brothers, shewed us round

The village of St. Croix neat, small, tolerably good village – White plains, chalk downs, a little like Salisbury plain with wood and brooks and houses in the valleys –

At Winton in the man’s shop, saw prospectus dated 5 August of railroad from Southampton through Winchester to London – The man had only one copy, referred me to Hampshire paper of last week –

12 miles from Winton to Southampton and Winton 63 from London – Quite a Down drive – Some of the hills cut through – All chalky – And then descend into well-wooded ground and villages –

At 3 25/.., 9 miles from Winton, the look down upon the Southampton River and Southampton Channel, a branch of it, very fine – The new forest right ahead on the other side the water – Southampton town 3 miles off almost hid among the trees and here turn off right (at 3 1/2) to Lyndhurst – Pass through a little village or 2 – Then at 4, Redbridge, good pretty village with, at the far end, picturesque old stone bridge over the broad water – 2 or 3 vessels lying just on this side the bridge – Good, straggling village on the other side the bridge – Writing copy of note to Lady Gordon.  Lyndhurst a nice little brick town – Change at the Crown at the far end of town and near the top of the hill – From over the bridge at Redbridge (I suppose) all the way to Lyndhurst and afterwards through the new forest – Deer in the forest from Lyndhurst. Some very fine oak and great deal of good birch, though its bole is very generally white and mossy – Great deal of heather – the soil not good for beech? Then a regular heather and whin and fern covered moor – Is there no grouse?

WYAS Finding Numbers,  SH:7/ML/TR/11/0008, SH/ML/TR/11/0009, and SH/ML/TR/11/0010