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Because <lj user = “esteven”>, Jack!Bear and Stephen!Bear asked.

There is of course Sebastian!Bear with his Chairman Mao cap and on top is Archie the Aardvark and on his left knee is Cancer Care Bear and the two little ones on the right are Bandaged Bears and the koala, really one of the ferocious drop bear variety which hang out in trees pretending to sleep and when no one is looking leap down and savage their victims, fearsome creatures *g*, but Sebaastian!Bear is reining him in.

The pink thing is my Newfie weather forecasting snake.

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Days 13 & 14 – Oxford

I got the train to Oxford and found my way to the place I’d booked, rooms above a pub, bad choice. It stank of stale cigarette smoke and was rather dingy. I dumped my bags and walked out into the steadily falling rain to find a place to eat, I had no intention of eating at the pub. I think there were better things to experience in Oxford.

I walked along Cornmarket Street and down St Aldate’s to visit Christ Church College. It is the largest of the Oxford’s college, Christ Church was founded in 1525 by Cardinal Wolsey as Cardinal College. The college buildings took over the site of St. Frideswide’s Monastery which was suppressed by Wolsey along with 22 monasteries to fund his college. After failing to gain a divorce from the Catholic Church, Henry VIII stripped Wolsey of all his property including Cardinal College. The college was renamed Christ Church and re-endowed in 1546 by Henry VIII –

The cloister like the cathedral is part of the original Priory of St Frideswide which stood here before the college was built.

The staircase in Christ Church inside the tower leading up to the dining room has a fan-vaulted ceiling dating from 1640 –

The Dining Hall or the Great Hall was built in 1592 and has many portraits of famous members of Christ Church on the walls, including a few of the thirteen Prime Ministers educated at the College –

The Dining Hall has many connections with Lewis Carroll’s book, Alice Adventures in Wonderland and was also used for scenes in the Harry potter films –

Though from the smells emanating from the kitchen, I don’t envy the students who eat there; it certainly smelt like all other institutional food, memories of my residential college’s meals, the more horrific kind – tripe, little lambs’ brains, tough as boot leather corned beef served with a bland, lumpy white sauce or the ultimate mystery dish, fruity lamb stew. *shudder*

The famous ‘Tom Tower’ was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1682 and houses the 7 ton ‘Great Tom’ bell, taken from the 12th century Osney Abbey. The bell tolls 101 times every night at 9:05 (9pm Oxford local time), originally to sound curfew for college members.

Oxford’s largest college is home to England’s smallest cathedral. On this site stood the convent church where Oxford’s patron saint, Frideswide, was buried in the 8th century. Around her shrine in the 9th and 10th centuries a group of priests lived a communal life, doing pastoral work, and in the 12th century the monastery became the Augustinian priory of St Frideswide. By the 13th century it was a major place of pilgrimage. When Cardinal Wolsey began the building of his college here, the western end of the building was removed to make space for Tom Quad, and the remainder was used as the temporary chapel for the new college. Wolsey’s plan to replace it with a larger chapel on the North side of Tom Quad would have caused its demolition but when he fell from power the building of the new chapel stopped. –


Tom Quad is the largest college quad in Oxford, measuring 264 by 261 feet. Although it was begun by Cardinal Wolsey, he was unable to complete it. Wolsey planned that it would actually be a cloister, and the supports required for this can be seen at short intervals around the quadrangle.

From Christ Church I walked back to the High Street, past Brasenose and Oriel Colleges and the Examination Schools and Magdalen College. I thought a walk around the Botanic Gardens would be pleasant. Situated on the banks of the River Cherwell, the University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and was founded in 1621 as a physic garden by Sir Henry Danvers.

It was built on the site of the former medieval Jewish cemetery. Four thousand loads of “mucke and dunge” were needed to raise the land above the Cherwell flood-plain.

Despite the size of the benefaction, the walls and arches were built on such a grand scale that by the time they were finished in 1633 all the money had been spent and there was nothing left to pay for the running of the Garden.

The garden has inspired J.R.R. Tolkein as well as for Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials Trilogy–


View of the tower of Magdalen College from the Botanic Garden. Magdalen College was founded originally as Magdalen Hall half-way up the High Street in Oxford in 1448. The founder, William of Waynflete, was Bishop of Winchester and had already had a hand in the foundation of schools (he had also been Provost of Eton) in which new educational ideas of the Renaissance era as well as new methods of teaching were tried out. For example, he introduced the teaching of Latin in the English language, and later pioneered the teaching of Greek. Waynflete was greatly influenced by Renaissance ideas about education and as his ambitions grew he managed to acquire a large tract of land beyond the walls of Oxford on which to build an entirely new College, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen. He obtained permission from Henry VI to take over the buildings and lands of an ancient and decaying Hospital, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, where he established Magdalen College and its associated Hall and School. Centuries later, the Hall become incorporated into Hertford College and Magdalen College-

The Garden was the site of frequent visits in the 1860s by Oxford mathematics professor Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (pen name Lewis Carroll) and the Liddell children, Alice and her sisters. Like many of the places and people of Oxford, it was a source of inspiration for Carroll’s stories in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.


In the Evelyn Waugh novel, Brideshead Revisited, Lord Sebastian Flyte takes Charles Ryder “to see the ivy” soon after they first meet. As he says, “Oh, Charles, what a lot you have to learn! There’s a beautiful arch there and more different kinds of ivy than I knew existed. I don’t know where I should be without the Botanical gardens” (Chapter One).

I walked back across the Christ Church Meadow to St Aldate’s. This pic was taken of Christ Church College & the Cathedral –

I walked past Merton College playing fields. Founded by Walter de Merton in 1264, Merton is one of the three oldest colleges in Oxford. The central quad (Mob Quad) contains the oldest library in the country, which houses a selection of precious medieval manuscripts – so precious, in fact, that they are chained to the walls! Walter de Merton’s conception of a self-governing community of scholars, with its own statutes and endowment, residing in buildings laid out in staircases and quadrangles, created a model and precedent for Oxford and Cambridge colleges founded in the succeeding centuries.

View of Christ Church College and Cathedral from Merton Field –

Meadow Building, Christ Church College was built in 1863 as the student residential building –

I went to have dinner and then back to the hotel room and fulfilled my worst fears. The drunk caterwauling from below want on for ages and then the bloody drunks when chucked out of the pub at closing time continued to argue and shout outside the hotel. Not much sleep that night.

The next morning I visited the Ashmolean Museum, originally based on a collection of Charles I’s gardener, John Tradescant. To have a look at the collections at the museum and the museum’s history, click here.

I spent most of the morning there and then went book browsing, a sort of torture as I knew that I couldn’t buy any as they were too heavy to carry, but a rainy day is good for a bookshop crawl and Oxford is the perfect city for book browsing. After lunch the weather cleared a little and I took myself off to Radcliffe Square to see the Bodleian.

Radcliffe Square lies at the very heart of the old University. The Radcliffe Camera was funded from the estate of the Royal Surgeon Dr John Radcliffe. The building was designed by James Gibbs and was completed in 1749. Originally conceived as a library of science and medicine, it is now part of the Bodleian Library and houses a collection on History and English Literature.

The Divinity School is a beautiful medieval building and room in the Perpendicular style in Oxford, England, part of the University of Oxford. Built 1427–83, it is the oldest surviving purpose-built building for university use, specifically for lectures and discussions on theology. The ceiling consists of very elaborate fan vaulting with bosses. The professor of Divinity (Theology) supervised the oral examination of candidates in this room until the nineteenth century.

The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford and was founded by Thomas Bodley in 1598. Today the collection comprises 6.5 million documents occupying 169Km (105 miles) of shelving space in 10 buildings located throughout Oxford. Much of the collection is kept in a network of tunnels running under Broad Street. The Old Schools Quadrangle is the oldest part of the library and the names of the original faculties are written above the doors in gold lettering (and, of course, in Latin). The Tower of Five Orders is so names because it is ornamented with columns of each of the five orders of classical architecture – Doric, Tuscan, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite – in ascending order.

Sheldonian Theatre was the first major work of Christopher Wren, at that time Professor of Astronomy. He designed the Sheldonian in imitation of a classical Roman theatre. During the late 17th century the Sheldonian saw service as the University printing press, but its main use now is as the location of the annual Encaenia ceremony, when University degrees are conferred. It is also used for official ceremonies and public concerts –

The Wren Door, the School of Divinity –

Then off for coffee and cake and just general mooching.
Ever onward to Bath.

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Days 13 & 14 – Oxford

I got the train to Oxford and found my way to the place I’d booked, rooms above a pub, bad choice. It stank of stale cigarette smoke and was rather dingy. I dumped my bags and walked out into the steadily falling rain to find a place to eat, I had no intention of eating at the pub. I think there were better things to experience in Oxford.

I walked along Cornmarket Street and down St Aldate’s to visit Christ Church College. It is the largest of the Oxford’s college, Christ Church was founded in 1525 by Cardinal Wolsey as Cardinal College. The college buildings took over the site of St. Frideswide’s Monastery which was suppressed by Wolsey along with 22 monasteries to fund his college. After failing to gain a divorce from the Catholic Church, Henry VIII stripped Wolsey of all his property including Cardinal College. The college was renamed Christ Church and re-endowed in 1546 by Henry VIII –

The cloister like the cathedral is part of the original Priory of St Frideswide which stood here before the college was built.

The staircase in Christ Church inside the tower leading up to the dining room has a fan-vaulted ceiling dating from 1640 –

The Dining Hall or the Great Hall was built in 1592 and has many portraits of famous members of Christ Church on the walls, including a few of the thirteen Prime Ministers educated at the College –

The Dining Hall has many connections with Lewis Carroll’s book, Alice Adventures in Wonderland and was also used for scenes in the Harry potter films –

Though from the smells emanating from the kitchen, I don’t envy the students who eat there; it certainly smelt like all other institutional food, memories of my residential college’s meals, the more horrific kind – tripe, little lambs’ brains, tough as boot leather corned beef served with a bland, lumpy white sauce or the ultimate mystery dish, fruity lamb stew. *shudder*

The famous ‘Tom Tower’ was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1682 and houses the 7 ton ‘Great Tom’ bell, taken from the 12th century Osney Abbey. The bell tolls 101 times every night at 9:05 (9pm Oxford local time), originally to sound curfew for college members.

Oxford’s largest college is home to England’s smallest cathedral. On this site stood the convent church where Oxford’s patron saint, Frideswide, was buried in the 8th century. Around her shrine in the 9th and 10th centuries a group of priests lived a communal life, doing pastoral work, and in the 12th century the monastery became the Augustinian priory of St Frideswide. By the 13th century it was a major place of pilgrimage. When Cardinal Wolsey began the building of his college here, the western end of the building was removed to make space for Tom Quad, and the remainder was used as the temporary chapel for the new college. Wolsey’s plan to replace it with a larger chapel on the North side of Tom Quad would have caused its demolition but when he fell from power the building of the new chapel stopped. –


Tom Quad is the largest college quad in Oxford, measuring 264 by 261 feet. Although it was begun by Cardinal Wolsey, he was unable to complete it. Wolsey planned that it would actually be a cloister, and the supports required for this can be seen at short intervals around the quadrangle.

From Christ Church I walked back to the High Street, past Brasenose and Oriel Colleges and the Examination Schools and Magdalen College. I thought a walk around the Botanic Gardens would be pleasant. Situated on the banks of the River Cherwell, the University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and was founded in 1621 as a physic garden by Sir Henry Danvers.

It was built on the site of the former medieval Jewish cemetery. Four thousand loads of “mucke and dunge” were needed to raise the land above the Cherwell flood-plain.

Despite the size of the benefaction, the walls and arches were built on such a grand scale that by the time they were finished in 1633 all the money had been spent and there was nothing left to pay for the running of the Garden.

The garden has inspired J.R.R. Tolkein as well as for Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials Trilogy–


View of the tower of Magdalen College from the Botanic Garden. Magdalen College was founded originally as Magdalen Hall half-way up the High Street in Oxford in 1448. The founder, William of Waynflete, was Bishop of Winchester and had already had a hand in the foundation of schools (he had also been Provost of Eton) in which new educational ideas of the Renaissance era as well as new methods of teaching were tried out. For example, he introduced the teaching of Latin in the English language, and later pioneered the teaching of Greek. Waynflete was greatly influenced by Renaissance ideas about education and as his ambitions grew he managed to acquire a large tract of land beyond the walls of Oxford on which to build an entirely new College, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen. He obtained permission from Henry VI to take over the buildings and lands of an ancient and decaying Hospital, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, where he established Magdalen College and its associated Hall and School. Centuries later, the Hall become incorporated into Hertford College and Magdalen College-

The Garden was the site of frequent visits in the 1860s by Oxford mathematics professor Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (pen name Lewis Carroll) and the Liddell children, Alice and her sisters. Like many of the places and people of Oxford, it was a source of inspiration for Carroll’s stories in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.


In the Evelyn Waugh novel, Brideshead Revisited, Lord Sebastian Flyte takes Charles Ryder “to see the ivy” soon after they first meet. As he says, “Oh, Charles, what a lot you have to learn! There’s a beautiful arch there and more different kinds of ivy than I knew existed. I don’t know where I should be without the Botanical gardens” (Chapter One).

I walked back across the Christ Church Meadow to St Aldate’s. This pic was taken of Christ Church College & the Cathedral –

I walked past Merton College playing fields. Founded by Walter de Merton in 1264, Merton is one of the three oldest colleges in Oxford. The central quad (Mob Quad) contains the oldest library in the country, which houses a selection of precious medieval manuscripts – so precious, in fact, that they are chained to the walls! Walter de Merton’s conception of a self-governing community of scholars, with its own statutes and endowment, residing in buildings laid out in staircases and quadrangles, created a model and precedent for Oxford and Cambridge colleges founded in the succeeding centuries.

View of Christ Church College and Cathedral from Merton Field –

Meadow Building, Christ Church College was built in 1863 as the student residential building –

I went to have dinner and then back to the hotel room and fulfilled my worst fears. The drunk caterwauling from below want on for ages and then the bloody drunks when chucked out of the pub at closing time continued to argue and shout outside the hotel. Not much sleep that night.

The next morning I visited the Ashmolean Museum, originally based on a collection of Charles I’s gardener, John Tradescant. To have a look at the collections at the museum and the museum’s history, click here.

I spent most of the morning there and then went book browsing, a sort of torture as I knew that I couldn’t buy any as they were too heavy to carry, but a rainy day is good for a bookshop crawl and Oxford is the perfect city for book browsing. After lunch the weather cleared a little and I took myself off to Radcliffe Square to see the Bodleian.

Radcliffe Square lies at the very heart of the old University. The Radcliffe Camera was funded from the estate of the Royal Surgeon Dr John Radcliffe. The building was designed by James Gibbs and was completed in 1749. Originally conceived as a library of science and medicine, it is now part of the Bodleian Library and houses a collection on History and English Literature.

The Divinity School is a beautiful medieval building and room in the Perpendicular style in Oxford, England, part of the University of Oxford. Built 1427–83, it is the oldest surviving purpose-built building for university use, specifically for lectures and discussions on theology. The ceiling consists of very elaborate fan vaulting with bosses. The professor of Divinity (Theology) supervised the oral examination of candidates in this room until the nineteenth century.

The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford and was founded by Thomas Bodley in 1598. Today the collection comprises 6.5 million documents occupying 169Km (105 miles) of shelving space in 10 buildings located throughout Oxford. Much of the collection is kept in a network of tunnels running under Broad Street. The Old Schools Quadrangle is the oldest part of the library and the names of the original faculties are written above the doors in gold lettering (and, of course, in Latin). The Tower of Five Orders is so names because it is ornamented with columns of each of the five orders of classical architecture – Doric, Tuscan, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite – in ascending order.

Sheldonian Theatre was the first major work of Christopher Wren, at that time Professor of Astronomy. He designed the Sheldonian in imitation of a classical Roman theatre. During the late 17th century the Sheldonian saw service as the University printing press, but its main use now is as the location of the annual Encaenia ceremony, when University degrees are conferred. It is also used for official ceremonies and public concerts –

The Wren Door, the School of Divinity –

Then off for coffee and cake and just general mooching.
Ever onward to Bath.

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Day 12 – Winchester

I left my hotel planning to take the train. No such luck, weekend track work strikes again. I had to take a bus back towards Brighton and then catch the train to Winchester from there. After a little confusion found the hotel and left my bags at the desk and went out to discover Winchester.

First stop was the Great Hall.
The Great Hall is all that remains of the once important royal castle of Winchester. The hall was built 1222-36 for Henry III, and replaced an older hall that was demolished as part of Henry’s remodelling of the castle. The Hall was the heart of the Castle. When in residence the King dined here, discussed affairs of State with his barons and clergy and sat in court to administer justice. In 1302 a serious fire caused widespread damage to the royal apartments at the castle, which was deemed beyond repair, as a result the castle was no longer used as a royal residence. The Great Hall served an important legal and administrative role and continued to be maintained, but the rest of the castle gradually fell into decay. In 1642 the Great Hall was sold to Hampshire’s Justices of the Peace. In 1645, Oliver Cromwell arrived in Winchester to besiege the castle which was being held by Royalist forces. After a week of heavy bombardment the castle surrendered, and what remained of the ruined fortress was demolished in 1649 so that it could no longer pose a threat. The Great Hall was kept as a venue for assemblies and the County Assizes.

The Hall reflected the preferences and tastes of Henry III. He was born at Winchester Castle in 1207 and loved to return here. During his reign (1216-72) art, architecture and design became more refined and sophisticated. This trend was reflected in the Great hall. 18 feet in diameter, the Round Table of King Arthur, which hangs on the wall at one end of the hall isn’t the real Round Table of legend, rather a version made for King Edward I (1272-1307), a king known for his interest in the Arthurian legend. Originally it was undecorated, but a young Henry VIII had it painted for a visit by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor.

Queen Eleanor’s Garden is an accurate example of a medieval garden and its features include turf seats, bay hedges, a fountain, camomile lawn, tunnel arbour and many beautiful herbs and flowers of the time. Situated just outside the South Door of The Great Hall is a re-creation of a medieval herbarium named after Queen Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III and her daughter-in-law Queen Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I.

Here is a page from the City of Winchester’s website on Queen Eleanor’s Garden –
Queen Eleanor’s Garden
Westgate is one of only two defence gateways to have survived in the city. Its core is 11th century, though most of the present building dates from two hundred years later. The west front, with its flamboyant Royal arms and its machicolations (murder-holes), was added in the 1300s. The two shields show the Royal coat of arms (left) and the arms of the city of Winchester (right) –

Westgate has had varied and many roles over the centuries. It was always a place for the collection of tolls and the imposition of law and order, being shut at curfew every night. Later it was a debtors’ prison, a pub extension and a repository for the city archives. Since 1898 it has been one of Winchester’s Museums housing weights and measures, arms and armour –

The High Cross is also known as the City or Butter Cross. Dating from the 15th Century, the monument was restored by G. G. Scott in 1865. The present name for the Cross dates from the early 19th century when vendors of dairy produce traded here. In 1770 it was sold off by the Paving Commissioners to a Mr Dummer. When he tried to remove it, the citizens of Winchester organised a small riot and preserved the monument for the City –

After having lunch in the building just behind the Butter Cross I ducked down a narrow land and out towards the Cathedral.
There has been a Cathedral in Winchester since about 648 AD. The foundations of the current Cathedral were laid out in 1079 by Walkelin, the first Norman Bishop. To this new building (consecrated in 1093) the relics of St. Swithun were solemnly transferred, 15 July, and the `Old Minster´ was torn down. The Norman cathedral measured 535 ft (164m) in length, the longest then in existence. This is 13m longer than the present structure as the Norman towers at the West front were removed about 1350.

Within its walls took place the burial of William Rufus (1100), the coronation of Richard I (1194), the marriage of Henry IV (1401), and the marriage of Queen Mary (1554).

The North Transept, the oldest part of the Cathedral. An interesting story of how the Cathedral was saved from collapse. The Retrochoir had been built in the early 13th century on a marshy area of land using only wooden foundations. Six hundred years later, of course, these were beginning to rot away. The cathedral started to subside and you can still see a definite lean (approximately 2.5 degrees) to the outside wall. The original estimate to repair the cathedral was £3,000 but the job wound up costing £113,000 and taking seven years. Diver Bill worked in 14 feet of murky water beneath the building, digging out the old timber and peat foundations and replacing them with bags of concrete cement and concrete blocks. In his years underwater, Diver Bill moved 25,800 bags of concrete and laid 114,900 concrete blocks. –

Between 1350 and 1410, the West front was rebuilt and the Nave remodelled in the Perpendicular style, mainly due to the efforts of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and founder of New College, Oxford and Winchester College –

This is a brass memorial plaque to Jane Austen who is buried in the North Aisle of the Cathedral. This was added later as the original tomb stone failed to mention her writing –

The choir stalls date from 1308, and they are made of Norwegian oak because English oak at that time was being heavily used for shipbuilding. There are fine carvings of human heads, foliage and mythical beasts. In the middle of the choir of Winchester Cathedral, immediately under the tower crossing, sits a very ancient tomb. Tradition ascribes it to King William Rufus, the unpopular son of the Conqueror. He was killed in the nearby New Forest under highly suspicious circumstances in 1100 and is known to have been hurriedly buried here. Seven years later the cathedral tower collapsed on top of him and it was generally thought to have been caused by his wickedness.

Vaulting above the Presbytery –

Beyond the choir are the high altar and the reredos (altar screen). The altar screen was erected with the aid of funds left to the monastic establishment upon the death of Cardinal Henry Beaufort. Work was begun in 1455 and continued for the next twenty years. During the Reformation the screen was desecrated so the statues in the niches are from Victorian times –

One of the two remaining City Gates, Kingsgate has the Church of St Swithun-upon-Kingsgate built over it. It truly is a tiny little church. I should have taken a photo, not sure why I didn’t. 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 the main route between the Castle and Bishop’s Palace. The two smaller pedestrian arches with brick heads on either side were inserted in the 18th century –

A glimpse of the 15th Century Cheyney Court through the Priory Gate, the gate is surmounted by a tiny house, the Porter’s Lodge once occupied by the Cathedral Organist. Also known as St Swithun’s gate, it marks the boundary between the Cathedral Close and the town. 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 –

Jane Austen’s House, now a private residence was her home in Winchester for the last six weeks of her life. She died on 18 July 1817 –

After being unsuccessful in viewing the ruins of Wolvesey Castle, I kept on walking around to the River Itchen and the weir. The Weir, which diverts some of the rivers flow, now lends its name to the whole area –

A pleasant walk indeed –



A Mill has stood near the bridge outside the old East Gate (demolished) of Winchester since at least the 11th century. For much of its life, it was in the possession of the nuns of Wherwell Abbey and it appears as such in the Domesday Survey of 1086. It passed to the City Corporation in 1554. The present structure was built over the River Itchen from local brick in 1744 –

The view up the High Street in Winchester –

The bronze figure of Alfred, standing with sword held aloft as a cross, on a block of granite at the bottom of High Street, is the work of Hamo Thornycroft. It was erected in 1901, a thousand years after the king’s death. Alfred (849-901) was born in Wantage as the youngest son of King Ethelwulf. By the time he succeeded to the throne of Wessex in 871 the Danes had overrun England from the Thames northwards. Initially he could do little to resist, but eventually drove the Danes back, and became king of a united England. He was buried in Winchester, at Hyde abbey –

The Winchester Guildhall, a Victorian Gothic building dating from 1871, loosely based on Belgian cloth halls such as the one in Bruges –

I then had a fossick around the Winchester City Museum and wandered around some of the other streets of Winchester and then had dinner at a pub on the way back to the hotel and all in all I thoroughly enjoyed my day in Winchester. Like Canterbury, I should imagine it is a very pleasant town to live, but both seem to have a rather worrying tendency to be flooded by the sweet little rivers flowing around them. Sweet until they start to overflow their banks. I believe the crypt of the Cathedral in Winchester is regularly closed due to flooding as it has sunk below the water table.

Don your cap and gown because we’re off to Oxford

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Day 12 – Winchester

I left my hotel planning to take the train. No such luck, weekend track work strikes again. I had to take a bus back towards Brighton and then catch the train to Winchester from there. After a little confusion found the hotel and left my bags at the desk and went out to discover Winchester.

First stop was the Great Hall.
The Great Hall is all that remains of the once important royal castle of Winchester. The hall was built 1222-36 for Henry III, and replaced an older hall that was demolished as part of Henry’s remodelling of the castle. The Hall was the heart of the Castle. When in residence the King dined here, discussed affairs of State with his barons and clergy and sat in court to administer justice. In 1302 a serious fire caused widespread damage to the royal apartments at the castle, which was deemed beyond repair, as a result the castle was no longer used as a royal residence. The Great Hall served an important legal and administrative role and continued to be maintained, but the rest of the castle gradually fell into decay. In 1642 the Great Hall was sold to Hampshire’s Justices of the Peace. In 1645, Oliver Cromwell arrived in Winchester to besiege the castle which was being held by Royalist forces. After a week of heavy bombardment the castle surrendered, and what remained of the ruined fortress was demolished in 1649 so that it could no longer pose a threat. The Great Hall was kept as a venue for assemblies and the County Assizes.

The Hall reflected the preferences and tastes of Henry III. He was born at Winchester Castle in 1207 and loved to return here. During his reign (1216-72) art, architecture and design became more refined and sophisticated. This trend was reflected in the Great hall. 18 feet in diameter, the Round Table of King Arthur, which hangs on the wall at one end of the hall isn’t the real Round Table of legend, rather a version made for King Edward I (1272-1307), a king known for his interest in the Arthurian legend. Originally it was undecorated, but a young Henry VIII had it painted for a visit by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor.

Queen Eleanor’s Garden is an accurate example of a medieval garden and its features include turf seats, bay hedges, a fountain, camomile lawn, tunnel arbour and many beautiful herbs and flowers of the time. Situated just outside the South Door of The Great Hall is a re-creation of a medieval herbarium named after Queen Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III and her daughter-in-law Queen Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I.

Here is a page from the City of Winchester’s website on Queen Eleanor’s Garden –
Queen Eleanor’s Garden
Westgate is one of only two defence gateways to have survived in the city. Its core is 11th century, though most of the present building dates from two hundred years later. The west front, with its flamboyant Royal arms and its machicolations (murder-holes), was added in the 1300s. The two shields show the Royal coat of arms (left) and the arms of the city of Winchester (right) –

Westgate has had varied and many roles over the centuries. It was always a place for the collection of tolls and the imposition of law and order, being shut at curfew every night. Later it was a debtors’ prison, a pub extension and a repository for the city archives. Since 1898 it has been one of Winchester’s Museums housing weights and measures, arms and armour –

The High Cross is also known as the City or Butter Cross. Dating from the 15th Century, the monument was restored by G. G. Scott in 1865. The present name for the Cross dates from the early 19th century when vendors of dairy produce traded here. In 1770 it was sold off by the Paving Commissioners to a Mr Dummer. When he tried to remove it, the citizens of Winchester organised a small riot and preserved the monument for the City –

After having lunch in the building just behind the Butter Cross I ducked down a narrow land and out towards the Cathedral.
There has been a Cathedral in Winchester since about 648 AD. The foundations of the current Cathedral were laid out in 1079 by Walkelin, the first Norman Bishop. To this new building (consecrated in 1093) the relics of St. Swithun were solemnly transferred, 15 July, and the `Old Minster´ was torn down. The Norman cathedral measured 535 ft (164m) in length, the longest then in existence. This is 13m longer than the present structure as the Norman towers at the West front were removed about 1350.

Within its walls took place the burial of William Rufus (1100), the coronation of Richard I (1194), the marriage of Henry IV (1401), and the marriage of Queen Mary (1554).

The North Transept, the oldest part of the Cathedral. An interesting story of how the Cathedral was saved from collapse. The Retrochoir had been built in the early 13th century on a marshy area of land using only wooden foundations. Six hundred years later, of course, these were beginning to rot away. The cathedral started to subside and you can still see a definite lean (approximately 2.5 degrees) to the outside wall. The original estimate to repair the cathedral was £3,000 but the job wound up costing £113,000 and taking seven years. Diver Bill worked in 14 feet of murky water beneath the building, digging out the old timber and peat foundations and replacing them with bags of concrete cement and concrete blocks. In his years underwater, Diver Bill moved 25,800 bags of concrete and laid 114,900 concrete blocks. –

Between 1350 and 1410, the West front was rebuilt and the Nave remodelled in the Perpendicular style, mainly due to the efforts of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and founder of New College, Oxford and Winchester College –

This is a brass memorial plaque to Jane Austen who is buried in the North Aisle of the Cathedral. This was added later as the original tomb stone failed to mention her writing –

The choir stalls date from 1308, and they are made of Norwegian oak because English oak at that time was being heavily used for shipbuilding. There are fine carvings of human heads, foliage and mythical beasts. In the middle of the choir of Winchester Cathedral, immediately under the tower crossing, sits a very ancient tomb. Tradition ascribes it to King William Rufus, the unpopular son of the Conqueror. He was killed in the nearby New Forest under highly suspicious circumstances in 1100 and is known to have been hurriedly buried here. Seven years later the cathedral tower collapsed on top of him and it was generally thought to have been caused by his wickedness.

Vaulting above the Presbytery –

Beyond the choir are the high altar and the reredos (altar screen). The altar screen was erected with the aid of funds left to the monastic establishment upon the death of Cardinal Henry Beaufort. Work was begun in 1455 and continued for the next twenty years. During the Reformation the screen was desecrated so the statues in the niches are from Victorian times –

One of the two remaining City Gates, Kingsgate has the Church of St Swithun-upon-Kingsgate built over it. It truly is a tiny little church. I should have taken a photo, not sure why I didn’t. 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 the main route between the Castle and Bishop’s Palace. The two smaller pedestrian arches with brick heads on either side were inserted in the 18th century –

A glimpse of the 15th Century Cheyney Court through the Priory Gate, the gate is surmounted by a tiny house, the Porter’s Lodge once occupied by the Cathedral Organist. Also known as St Swithun’s gate, it marks the boundary between the Cathedral Close and the town. 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 –

Jane Austen’s House, now a private residence was her home in Winchester for the last six weeks of her life. She died on 18 July 1817 –

After being unsuccessful in viewing the ruins of Wolvesey Castle, I kept on walking around to the River Itchen and the weir. The Weir, which diverts some of the rivers flow, now lends its name to the whole area –

A pleasant walk indeed –



A Mill has stood near the bridge outside the old East Gate (demolished) of Winchester since at least the 11th century. For much of its life, it was in the possession of the nuns of Wherwell Abbey and it appears as such in the Domesday Survey of 1086. It passed to the City Corporation in 1554. The present structure was built over the River Itchen from local brick in 1744 –

The view up the High Street in Winchester –

The bronze figure of Alfred, standing with sword held aloft as a cross, on a block of granite at the bottom of High Street, is the work of Hamo Thornycroft. It was erected in 1901, a thousand years after the king’s death. Alfred (849-901) was born in Wantage as the youngest son of King Ethelwulf. By the time he succeeded to the throne of Wessex in 871 the Danes had overrun England from the Thames northwards. Initially he could do little to resist, but eventually drove the Danes back, and became king of a united England. He was buried in Winchester, at Hyde abbey –

The Winchester Guildhall, a Victorian Gothic building dating from 1871, loosely based on Belgian cloth halls such as the one in Bruges –

I then had a fossick around the Winchester City Museum and wandered around some of the other streets of Winchester and then had dinner at a pub on the way back to the hotel and all in all I thoroughly enjoyed my day in Winchester. Like Canterbury, I should imagine it is a very pleasant town to live, but both seem to have a rather worrying tendency to be flooded by the sweet little rivers flowing around them. Sweet until they start to overflow their banks. I believe the crypt of the Cathedral in Winchester is regularly closed due to flooding as it has sunk below the water table.

Don your cap and gown because we’re off to Oxford

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1852

I enjoyed a particular section of the Federal Opposition Leader’s speech at the Labor Party Conference today –

He said the ALP stood for community, country and for the planet.

“By contrast, the conservatives stand for their three great ennobling values of me, myself and I,” he said.

“The contrast is as far as it is deep. We stand for something bigger than ourselves and our self interest.”

Mr Rudd took particular aim at the Prime Minister, accusing him of being unable to prepare for a future in which climate change and education would be central issues.

“He is out of ideas,” he said. “Mr Howard doesn’t really believe in a single idea that didn’t appear on black-and-white television.

“The world has changed since Leave it to Beaver. The world has changed.

“And to conceal his absence of ideas he’s now increasingly driven by short-term politics in order to cling to long-term political office.

“And all this is driven overwhelmingly by the fact that Mr Howard is the most clever politician this country has seen in a generation.”

“Mr Howard is a climate change denier. This is the modern equivalent of arguing that the earth is flat and that NASA faked the moon landing and that Elvis is out there somewhere still flipping burgers in Florida.

“That’s how in touch with reality Mr Howard is on this one.”

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Because a lot of people are doing this

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Because a lot of people are doing this

Looks like a good movie. I’m sure it was the film crew for The Golden Compass who were filming at Chatham Dockyard on the day I visited.

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