122, 123
St Cross from the South 124
St Cross from the Quadrangle 125
St Cross: East End from Nave 126
County Hall with Round Table 127
The City Cross 129
Tombstone in Churchyard 131
The West Gate 132
PLANS OF THE CATHEDRAL AND CRYPTS 134, 135

[Illustration: THE DEANERY, WINCHESTER.
_S.B. Bolas & Co., Photo._]

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL

CHAPTER I

HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL

Unlike many of our cathedral cities, "Royal" Winchester has a secular
history of the greatest importance, which not only is almost
inextricably interwoven with the ecclesiastical annals down to a
comparatively recent date, but should at times occupy the foremost
position in the records of the place. To attempt, however, to trace the
story of the city as well as that of the cathedral would be to
recapitulate the most important facts of the history of England during
those centuries when Winchester was its capital town. Its civic
importance, indeed, was not dependent upon the cathedral alone, for
before the introduction of Christianity into the island Winchester was
undoubtedly the principal place in the south of England. The Roman
occupation, though it seems a mere incident in its record, lasted over
three centuries, about as long as from the reign of Henry VIII. to that
of Queen Victoria. Richard Warner (1795) sums up the various names of
Winchester when he speaks of "the metropolis of the British Belgae,
called by Ptolemy and Antoninus Venta Belgarum; by the Welch or modern
Britons, Caer Gwent; and by the old Saxons, Wintancester; by the Latin
writers, Wintonia" ("Collections for the History of Hampshire").

Even, therefore, when we read the account of the legendary king of the
Britons, Lucius, founding a great church at Winchester in A.D. 164, we
do not touch the source of its fame, nor have we discovered the record
of the first building devoted to religious worship on the site of the
present cathedral. How far certain references to early pagan temples may
be trusted does not here concern us; but at Christchurch Priory, some
thirty-five miles to the south-west in the same diocese, bones "supposed
to be those of sacrificial birds" have been