Giles's Hill is a pleasant spot from which to view the venerable city. Down the valley, by the Itchen, rises the Hospital and Church of St. Cross, a picturesque and peaceful group of buildings viewed from any position, but particularly so taken in conjunction with the ancient city and the fertile valley threaded by numberless small streams. On the left side of the valley is St. Catherine's Hill, a bold and outstanding spur crowned with a small belt of trees surrounded by a circular earthwork. At one time a chapel dedicated to St. Catherine capped the hill, and slight traces of the building may yet be seen. Here is the interesting maze, said to have been made by a Winchester College boy who was obliged to remain behind during the holidays, but probably of a different origin, some antiquaries holding the opinion that it is of great antiquity, and in some way connected with ecclesiastical penance.

Looking citywards, one can see the towers of many churches rising above the gables and chimneys of the houses. Near at hand are St. Peter's, Cheeshill, and St. John's, the former an interesting little building with a mixture of styles, among which the Norman and Early English predominate, the windows being of a later period. The bell turret is situated at the south-east corner of the building, which, as a whole, gives a singular impression, due to the fact that it is nearly as broad as it is long. St. John's Church is the most interesting in the city, containing as it does a fine rood screen, with the rood-loft stairs still existing in a turret of fifteenth-century date. Other features of interest are the fourteenth-century Decorated screens that enclose the chancel on each side, and an arched recess at the east end of the north wall, containing an altar-tomb with quatrefoil panels supporting shields on which are the symbols of the Passion. The tomb itself bears neither inscription nor date.

Here also are a set of carved bench ends, a Perpendicular pulpit, and an octagonal font.

Unfortunately, most of the other churches of Winchester have been either rebuilt or so altered as to retain very little of their original architecture. The Church of St. Maurice, rebuilt in 1841, has saved a Norman doorway, fragments of a fine Decorated screen which now serve for altar rails, and an ancient chest.

Like most of our cathedral cities, Winchester is well supplied with charitable institutions, although the best known of them all, the famous Hospital of St. Cross, is situated a mile away from the city proper. The Hospital of St. John, within Winchester, is one of the oldest foundations of the kind in the country, and a portion of the vaulted kitchen remaining in the building may not unreasonably be supposed to have formed part of the almshouse thought to have been founded on the spot in A.D. 935 by St. Brinstan. The chapel connected with the charity dates from the time of the third Henry, and contains a piece of fourteenth-century carving depicting the nimbed head of the Saviour, which is now built into a wall. Considerable doubt exists as to the original founder and early re-founders of this hospital, and little is known concerning it until the time of Edward II, when John Devenish re-founded it. At that period it seems to have been for the "sole relief of sick and lame soldiers, poor pilgrims, and necessitated wayfaring men, to have their lodging and diet there for one night, or longer, as their inability to travel may require". Many influential citizens left money or property to this charity. In 1400 Mark le Faire, Mayor of Winchester, bequeathed to it several houses, including the "great inn called the George", and the "house under the penthouse where Mr. Hodgson died". Richard Devenish, in the time of Henry VI, left a sum of money to provide for a more frequent performance of divine service in the chapel; but in the reign of Henry VIII these and other funds were confiscated, although the building itself was subsequently restored to the Corporation.

BEAUFORT TOWER AND AMBULATORY, ST. CROSS

After the Reformation, Ralph Lambe re-founded the charity for six poor and needy persons, who were to have six separate homes or chambers within the hospital, each furnished with locks and keys. Each person was to receive ten shillings quarterly, with a gown value ten shillings, and ten shillings' worth of coal yearly. On the election of a new mayor each was to receive two shillings, and any funds remaining were to be divided among the inmates at the discretion of the mayor and aldermen of the city. This institution is still a flourishing one, and the original hall, standing to the west of the chapel, is let as a public dining-hall.

Another old charity was that of St. Mary Magdalene, founded for lepers, in 1173-88, by Bishop Toclyve, the inmates being known locally as "the infirm people upon the hill", now Maun Hill. In early times lepers were required to give up the whole of their personal goods, and one of the questions asked by the official visitor to the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene was whether the goods of the deceased inmates went to the works of the church after the settlement of debts. The funds of this foundation were much tampered with at various times, and it lost some of its property at the Reformation. One of its benefactors left to it four flitches of bacon yearly, this being an important article of diet. The original plan of the hospital was quadrangular: on two sides were the inmates' rooms and the chapel, the remaining sides being occupied by the Master's House and the common hall. The buildings were much damaged in the time of Charles I by the troops stationed there, and again in the reign of Charles II by the Dutch prisoners confined within the hospital. The chapel was pulled down in 1788, and the materials were used for building purposes, when the fine Early Norman doorway was used in the Roman Catholic Church in St. Peter Street, where it may still be seen. This was the west doorway of the ancient hospital chapel. The site is now occupied by a hospital of another character, the isolation hospital, but the old "lepers' well" can still be seen. The charity survives to some extent in six cottages in Water Lane, built in 1788, wherein are housed four men and four women.

In Symond's Street stands the picturesque "Christes Hospital", founded in 1586 by James Symonds. It is generally called the "Bluecoat" Hospital, from the distinctive dress worn by the inmates. A scholastic institution was attached to this charity for the education of four poor boys, chosen by the mayor and corporation, who also elected their teacher. The latter was not to be, in the terms of the founder, either a "Scotchman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a foreigner, or a North-countryman", lest their pronunciation of the English language should suffer.

From among the fertile meadows bordering the banks of the Itchen to the south of Winchester rises the stately grey pile of St. Cross, standing where it has stood for over seven and a half centuries, a witness alike to the munificence of its founders, de Blois and Beaufort, and to the skill of the mediaeval builders.

A good road leads from the city to the pleasing suburb in which the hospital is situated, though a far pleasanter way is by one of the field paths through the meadows.

Henry de Blois became bishop when only twenty-eight years old, and in 1136 he founded the hospital for the entire support of "thirteen poor men, feeble and so reduced in strength that they can hardly or with difficulty support themselves without another's aid"; and they were to be supplied with "garments and beds suitable to their infirmities, good wheate bread daily of the weight of 5 marks, and three dishes at dinner and one at supper, suitable to the day, and drink of good stuff".

Besides this, he provided for a hundred poor men to be supplied daily