From Paddington to Penzance. Charles G. Harper

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      Holy Ghost Chapel, Basingstoke

      Modern Basingstoke—“name of hidden and subtle meaning,” as Mr. Gilbert says in “Ruddigore”—is prosperous, cheerful with the ruddy mellowness of red-brick, and loyal with a lofty Jubilee belfry-tower to its Town Hall; and that is all the spirit moves me to set down here of the town.

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      No more dreary road than that sixteen miles between Basingstoke and Winchester; a road that goes in a remorseless straight line through insignificant scenery, passing never a village for twelve or more weary miles, a road upon which every turning leads to Micheldever. Sign-posts one and all conspire to lead you thither, with an unanimity perfectly surprising. We made certain that something entirely out of the common run was to be found at that place of the peculiar name, and so we were ill enough advised to visit it by turning aside for the matter of a mile.

      And yet, when we were arrived at the place, there was nothing to be seen; nay, worse than that indeed: there is a church at Micheldever whose architectural enormities would make any sane ecclesiologist flee the neighbourhood on the instant. Of the scenery, I will remark only that the village is overhung with funereal pines and firs, a setting that depresses beyond the power of words to express.

      We retraced our steps toward the high road to Winchester, with anathemas upon those sign-posts, varied by a consideration of Hampshire as a county prolific in what Mr. Gilbert calls, “that curious anomaly”—the lady novelist. For, look you, at Micheldever resides Mrs. Mona Caird, the heroine of the “Marriage a Failure” correspondence, and the authoress of the “Wing of Azrael”; and Sparkford, Haslemere, and the New Forest shelter respectively, Miss Yonge, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and Miss Braddon; others, doubtless, there be within these gates who help to swell the output of the familiar three volumes, for almost every woman of leisure and scribbling propensities writes romances nowadays. Hampshire, indeed, seems decidedly a literary county, for Tennyson and Tyndall and Kingsley (Keble, too) have lived and worked within its borders.

      For the next five miles we passed, I think, but one house, Lunways Inn, and then came upon modified civilisation in the shape of the village of King’s Worthy. There is quite a cluster of villages here with the generic name of Worthy, with prefixes by which we can generally identify the old-time lords of the respective manors. There are beside King’s Worthy, Abbot’s Worthy, Martyr Worthy, and Headbourne Worthy, “Headbourne,” conjecturally from the brook that rises by the village churchyard. This village lies on the road to Winchester, directly after King’s Worthy is passed, and is about a mile and a half from the city.

      The church is interesting for itself, but it contains a charming little monumental brass to a Winchester scholar that alone is worth journeying to see, both from its unique character and by reason of its technical excellence. It was formerly let into the flooring of the chancel, and was in danger of being trampled out of recognition, until the vicar caused it to be fixed on the north wall of the church, where it now remains.

      The brass consists of the kneeling figure of a boy in the act of prayer, habited in the time-honoured Winchester College gown, of the same pattern, with slight modifications, as that worn to-day. He wears, suspended from his collar, a badge, probably that of a patron saint; his hair is short, and exhibits the small first tonsure customarily performed on scholars upon completing their first year. A scroll issuing from his mouth is inscribed “Misericordias dni inetnū cantabo”—The mercies of the Lord I will sing for ever. The curiously contracted Latin of the inscription beneath is, Englished, “Here lies John Kent, sometime scholar of the New College of Winchester, son of Simon Kent of Reading, whose soul God pardon.”

      It is supposed that he was removed to Headbourne from the College by his parents, to escape an epidemic prevalent there in the year of his death, 1434, when several other scholars died. The “College Register” records the death of John Kent: “Johēs Kent de Redyng de eadem com. adm. XXIII. die August obiit ulto die Augusti anno Regni Reg. H. VI. XIII.”

      Within the space of another half-hour we had reached the city and discovered an hostelry after our own heart. We remained three whole days at Winchester.

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      The ancient capital of all England lies in the quiet valley of the River Itchen, a small stream which, some twelve miles lower down, empties into Southampton Water. The naïve remark of the schoolboy upon the “coincidence” of great cities always being situated upon the banks of large rivers did not, when Winchester was the metropolis, have any application here, but in the light of subsequent history it may show the reason of the city’s decadence.

      From the earliest times Winchester was a city of importance; Briton and Roman, Saxon, Dane, and Norman alike made it a place of strength. Under Cerdic, first king of the West Saxons, the city became the capital of that kingdom, and at the dissolution of the Heptarchy, capital of united England.

      But it was under the rule of the early Plantagenet kings that Winchester attained the zenith of its prosperity as the seat of government and as a centre of the woollen trade. Now the court has departed, and the manufacture utterly died out; but Winchester is a prosperous city still—gay with the rubrical gaiety of a cathedral city—the centre of an agricultural district, and the capital of a diocese.

      Of feudal Winchester much has been destroyed; but from the remains of its two great castles, and of the city gates and walls, one may conjure up the city of the two first Norman kings, held under stern repressive rule, when despotic power lay in the hands of alien king and noble. Then the New Forest lying near was a newly created desolation; and the country-side, now dotted with villages, a sparsely settled tract. And even in the city itself there were long hours when all was silent and lonely; for when the curfew rang out, who dared to disobey its warning note? Then the city was given up to darkness, the watchmen at the closed and guarded gates, and the sentinels СКАЧАТЬ