cradle of woodwork erected to give temporary support to the eastern superstructure cost over a thousand pounds to fix, and up to date many thousands of pounds have been spent on the work. It was not until these temporary supports had been fixed and excavations begun that the magnitude of the task was fully revealed. The Cathedral was found to have been built on an old "water-bed" having a foundation of peat, the distance between the ground level and the firm gravel beneath the peat being 27 feet. The only hope of saving the east end was to remove the peat and fill in the spaces with concrete and cement. With the removal of the peat, however, there was so great an influx of water that pumping was of no avail. Two of the best divers in the kingdom were then procured, and by working on their backs and sides in 15 feet of muddy water they succeeded in laying the concrete bed. Owing to the same cause, the remainder of the structure will, sooner or later, have to be treated in the same way, and the thorough restoration of the west front cannot be long postponed. The difficulty of the work is realized when we consider that it takes a whole month to underpin 4 feet of foundation. Owing to the cramped space and the darkness three weeks are spent in excavation; after which the divers require a week to place the concrete and cement in position. That so national a heritage will be saved, for the delight of our own and the instruction of future generations, must be the wish of all true lovers of the great building achievements of the past.

The cathedral precincts are in excellent keeping with the repose and beauty of the building to which they form the court, and are full of historical memories. The palace of the Conqueror reached from Great Minster Street to Market Street, from High Street to the Square; and eastwards rose the "New Minster", and the Nuns' Abbey of St. Mary.

To-day the greater part of the Close, with the Deanery and the various canonical residences, lies on the south side. Only a few slight fragments remain of the cloisters, the destruction of which could not have been considered possible by Wykeham. They were taken down by Bishop Horne in the reign of Elizabeth. The short row of Norman arches seen from the Close belonged to the old Chapter House, which is said to have been pulled down for the sake of its lead. The Deanery was the ancient house of the Priors, of which it contains many interesting memorials. Here are the Great Hall, now subdivided, and the Hospitium, used as stables. The Deanery entrance has three pointed arches, beneath which, as we have stated, the poor pilgrims and other wayfarers received food and alms. On his numerous visits to Winchester, Charles II used to lodge at the Deanery, until Prebendary Ken (afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells) refused to allow Nell Gwynne to enter the house, with the result that she had to content herself with an inferior residence outside the precincts.

Of Wykeham's "College of St. Marie", or New College, Oxford, this is not the place to speak, especially as it has already been dealt with in the "Oxford" volume of this "Beautiful England" series. His other "College of St. Mary", or, as it is commonly known, Winchester College, has a history extending far beyond that of most of our great public schools; and Winchester was celebrated for its educational institutions in Saxon days.

WINCHESTER COLLEGE: THE OUTER GATEWAY FROM "ARCADIA"

Wykeham's idea in founding these two colleges was one for which he had no precedent before him, so that his design was to a large extent in the nature of an experiment. His idea, of course, was to enable those who proceeded from the Winchester to the Oxford College to receive a systematic and continuous education. Where Wykeham led, others were not long in following. Two of his successors in the see of Winchester, Waynflete and Fox, gave to Oxford the beautiful colleges of Magdalen and Corpus Christi respectively. Archbishop Chichele, one of Wykeham's first scholars, built St. Bernard's College, now St. John Baptist's, which he gave to the Cistercians before its completion; and later in life he founded the College of All Souls, while in his native village of Higham Ferrers, Northants, he built and endowed a school, bede-house, and church, which are among some of the loveliest pieces of building we possess. Henry VI made himself intimately acquainted with the works of Wykeham, and copied them for his two colleges of Eton, and King's College, Cambridge. Until Wykeham's time, schools had been under or connected with monastic houses; now they were distinct foundations, with priests still as masters, but priests secular and not religious. Wykeham was, indeed, the pioneer of the public-school system, of which, with all its shortcomings, England is so justly proud.

Each of the bishop's colleges took about six years in building, and that at Oxford was the first to be finished. It must have been a proud day for Winchester when, on March 28, 1393, the "seventy faithful boys", headed by their master, came in procession from St. Giles's Hill, where they had been temporarily housed, and, all chanting psalms, entered into possession of their fair college.

The buildings have been but little altered since their founder's day, and extend now, as then, on the south side of the Close, and along the bank of the Itchen. They consist mainly of two quadrangles, in the first of which, entered from College Street by a gateway, are the Warden's house and other offices. Here is the brewhouse, quite unaltered; but the Warden's house has absorbed the old bakehouse, slaughterhouse, and butcher's room. Over the second archway are figures of the Virgin, with Gabriel on her right, and Wykeham kneeling on her left. Here was a room for the Warden, from which he could see all who entered or left the college; and here also is the site of the old penthouse under which the scholars used to perform their ablutions, and which they called "Moab". The old Society comprised the Warden, ten Fellows, three Chaplains, sixteen Queristers, and seventy scholars. The boys, the chaplains, and the choristers lived within the inner quadrangle, the northern side of which is formed by the chapel and the refectory. The original chapel, with the exception of the beautiful fan-groining of its roof, was much defaced in the seventeenth century, but was restored in the nineteenth, when a new reredos was added. The refectory remains practically untouched, and has a roof enriched with some beautiful carved woodwork, the painted heads of kings and bishops, and some great mullioned windows. Over the buttery is the audit-room, hung with ancient and rare tapestries, and containing a large chest known as Wykeham's money box. The original schoolroom was in the basement, and has long been put to other uses. The chantry, the beautiful cloisters, and the chapel tower were all built after the founder's death, but he provided a wooden bell tower, which stood away from the chapel, so that the main building should not be injured by the vibration of the bells. The remaining portions are mostly modern, and the foundation has naturally been much enlarged since Wykeham's day, the last addition being the gateway in Kingsgate Street, erected as a memorial to the many Wykehamists who fell in the South African War.

On the wall of a passage adjoining the kitchen is a singular painting, supposed to be emblematical of a "trusty servant", compounded of a man, a hog, a deer, and an ass. The explanatory words beneath it are attributed to Dr. Christopher Jonson, headmaster from 1560 to 1571.

With the completion of Winchester College, Wykeham turned his attention to the Cathedral, although he was then seventy years of age. He lived to see his munificence bearing good fruit, and his foundations flourishing in reputation and usefulness; so that