Illustrations have been moved near to the text they illustrate. The page numbers in the List of Illustrations refer to the original positions. Footnotes have been moved to the end of chapters. Sidenotes were originally page headings, they have been moved to the start of paragraphs. Inconsistent hyphenation and variant spelling are retained. Quotations and transcriptions have been left as printed. Minor changes have been made to punctuation, the other changes that have been made are listed at the

I took out my notebook and pencil, and was shown into a ground-floor room in the western and earlier part of the hotel to see this curiosity. Alas! it proved to be nothing but an old paperhanging. “Not very remarkable,” I said, carelessly. “Indeed, sir!” “I am expecting some friends by the next train,” I continued. “We shall require dinner for three. What can we have?” The waiter was pretty well acquainted with the productions of the culinary department, which had not much charm of novelty, and

Royal Oak Passage This building, on which is inscribed in large letters “God-begot House,” is at present occupied by the two establishments of Mr. Perkins, a draper, and Miss Pamplin, a stationer. From the house of the former the panelling has been removed, but behind the shop is a small room with a richly stuccoed ceiling. Miss Pamplin showed us over her house with great courtesy. The upper part is wainscoted with oak. The drawing-room is handsome—low, of course—and it has many beams in the cei

Thence as we proceeded up the City Road we found the modern walls largely studded with pieces of old cut stone. The foundations of the city walls ran close to the houses on our right, and a gentleman we met told us that during some excavations he had seen a part of them uncovered six feet in thickness. On the left we soon came to Trinity Church, a handsome new structure, and on the right, beside Newman’s the grocer’s, there is a gate leading to some sheds in the famous meadow called Danemead. Fa

Crossing the City Road we went straight on into Hyde Street, which seems like a continuation of Jewry Street. On the right Fossedyke House commemorates the city walls and ditch. Farther on I noticed a relic of the past—a small shop with a gable, very low rooms, and windows scarcely more than a foot high. Two steps descended into it, a proof of age—as either the soil outside has risen, or the owner has been, like the Irishman, “raising his roof.” On the other side, we came to the large malthouse

“Or poetic,” I continued, “Warton was poet-laureate, and his brother was head-master here. But there is no doubt that the site on which this Cathedral stands was of prehistoric sanctity. Hard by at the southern gate of the Close we find in the road two Druidical monoliths. Was not this a place where the long-haired, skin-clad Britons came to lay their offerings? Did not some mighty chieftain repose here beneath a rude dolmen? Below the crypt there is a well which reminds us of the holy wells—suc

There seems to have been a great desire among soldiers to commemorate this hero, or the moral of his death, for the stone was replaced again in 1802. As we left this spot I recalled the memory of the Saxon, St. Brinstan, who was fond of walking here. He was an excellent man, but of a somewhat melancholy turn of mind. Every day he washed the feet of the poor, and every night he would pace up and down among the tombs saying the Placebo and Dirige ; and we are told that on one occasion when he fini

Here I am now at my destination. I pass through the village of Sparkford, [98] and stand before the ancient structure founded by Bishop de Blois for the (much needed) health of his soul and for the repose of the kings of England. He endowed it from his private revenues, as well as from gifts of rectories and from the spoils of Hyde Abbey, which consisted of 500 pounds weight of silver, 30 marks of gold, and three crowns of gold, with thorns of gold set with diamonds. The revenue was originally £

Chilcombe is a large parish, and reaches nearly into Winchester. Cynegils in the seventh century gave it to the monastery. But on the high ground above Chilcombe Lodge, the present parsonage, was lately found a curiosity which carries back our retrospect far beyond all such modern history. In sinking a well an aërolite was discovered imbedded forty feet in the chalk! Can we imagine the time when this bolt fell hissing into the sea, and lodged upon some of the shellfish, whose remains formed thes