One Full Day in Winchester

THIS is what I came here for -- THE Round Table.

Yeah, I know, looks kitschy and touristy, right?  Obviously it doesn't go back to the time of King Arthur, whoever he was, whenever he was, IF he was.  BUT many kings of England, wishing to establish the legitimacy of their line, were very interested in claiming descent from King Arthur.  This was particularly true of the Tudors, but this table predates even them by hundreds of years.  It was constructed in the mid-to-late 1200s, during the reign of King Edward I.  It may have been built for the betrothal of one of his daughters (April 20, 1299) to be used at a tournament held at that time.  It was all about chivalry back in the day.  In the time of Henry VIII it was painted, and the image at the top is thought to be that of Henry as a young man.  This actually ties in (a bit) to my mathematician studies, as John Dee traced his lineage, and also that of Queen Elizabeth I, back to King Arthur (Athurus Rex, son of Uter Pendraco Rex), as shown in the Genealogical Roll of John Dee (British Library: shelf mark Cotton. Ch.XIV.1.)  This was serious business!

So, I had to go see the Round Table, which I didn't really mind doing. :-)   Here are some more views - including one from the garden and some in the garden (Queen Eleanor's Garden) as well as one from the front (with some funky van parked there for some reason).

Another destination I went to in connection with John Dee was the Hospital of St. Cross.  I had only recently come across this in an article I read on Dee just weeks before leaving.  In the article I read that Dee had asked Queen Elizabeth I to give him the Hospital of St. Cross as a place to live rather than Mortlake, as it was larger and could better accommodate his family, his work, and the visiting scholars that came to consult with him.  There is a lot about this that I didn't understand, but I thought I'd walk over and check it out since I knew it was "associated" with Dee.  Many things became clear.  It isn't a "hospital" as we think of the term.  It was an alms house (a hospitable house), and Dee would have had the "living of it" as people did when they were given a parish living.  If the previous master had died or moved on, it would absolutely make sense for Dee to ask Elizabeth to give it to him.

The view just outside the wall and toward the River Itchen is seen in the following picture, so had Dee moved here, this would have been the surrounding of his home.

But there are other big names associated with Winchester.  That's a profound understatement!  I'll mention two others.  Just over 200 years later Jane Austen lived in Winchester, and John Keats lived here for a time as well.  The area pictured above is known as the Keats Walk.  And I'll post more pictures of it towards the end of this post with a selection of views of Winchester.  First let's pay homage to Jane Austen who lived her final days here and then was buried in the cathedral (despite being neither rich nor even famous at the time - her brother who had been adopted into a wealthy family paid for her burial in the cathedral, which had been her dying wish).  Her memorial stone does not even mention her writing.

I always sort of pictured here in a neighborhood with a cluster of similar houses, but her house was right next to Winchester College where students would have been coming and going every day.

Though her writing isn't mentioned, her epitaph includes the line, "the extraordinary endowments of her mind," which was an unusual thing to have been written of a woman at that time.

I took time to walk further around Winchester Cathedral, which is the longest medieval cathedral in the world (a couple of more recent cathedrals, such as St. Peter's, are longer).   Some of the tiling in the cathedral goes back to the 1200s.

 

I specifically remember the stone above from my last (very short) visit here, which was in spring 2020.  It always impacts me deeply to see the graves of babies or children.  This burial must have cost a great deal, as this is in the east end of the church, between the high altar and the chapels on the east side - near the Lady Chapel and the Guardian Angel Chapel (which seems appropriate).

The Guardian Angel Chapel is one of my favorites.  

The ceiling was painted in 1240, and there was some restoration in 1959-1960.

The following two pictures are from the Lady Chapel.

In the south transept is the chapel of St. John the Evangelist and the Fishermen-Apostles.  It is here that Izaac Walton, author of The Compleat Angler is buried.

There are a number of chantry chapels as well as side chapels here.  This is the fifth largest cathedral in area in the UK, so there's quite a lot to explore.

The next picture is of the ceiling of Cardinal Beaufort's chantry chapel - a ceiling beneath a ceiling!

In my previous post I included pictures of the beautiful ceiling above the high altar.  All of the bosses on the ceiling having meaning, and I find the boss with dice on it the most interesting.  Can you see them in the top left of the picture below?  Why dice?  Try to answer that before reading on.

The dice represent the casting of lots for the clothing of Christ when he was crucified.  Just to the side and up high are mortuary chests containing the bones of some of the kings (and one queen) and and some of the bishops of Winchester.  The queen whose bones are here was the wife of two kings and the mother of two kings, including Edward the Confessor, and it is through her that William of Normandy had a claim to the British throne.

OK, I could post dozens or scores of pictures of the cathedral inside and out, but this is maybe turning into too much of a history lesson.  There's just so much here!  For the rest of this post I'll just include random pictures of other things and places in Winchester that caught my attention.  It really is a lovely town - and very walkable - and the history here is very deep.

Speaking of lovely, this medieval home really caught my attention.

The painter below was doing a fabulous job of capturing the high street. 

Steel doors in the Great Hall, opposite the Round Table, commissioned in 1981 to commemorate the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

The pathway below is part of the Keats Walk, where poet John Keats did walk in the early 19th century.

The path runs along the River Itchen where Izaak Walton fished in the 17th century.

I recently watched a movie about the life of John Keats, the part of his life lived in Winchester.  Having seen that and now having been here, I'm pretty sure it was filmed on location.

Heading back into town with a view of some buildings of Winchester College peaking over the wall.

In many places the sidewalks are very narrow -

 - very, VERY narrow!  Imagine two people meeting up here, both carrying luggage, which a car is passing on the street!!

And a photo of the evening sky - a beautiful end to a beautiful day.
Thanks again to those of you who are following me on this journey - sorry about the slow pace of my posts.  I take far too many pictures every day and then have to sort through them and often rearrange them, as well as recalling lots of details.  This was day 12 of a trip that I remain on but am now in day 23 of, so I am quite far behind.  Since this time I have been in Oxford and Eyemouth (Scotland) and am leaving tomorrow for Edinburgh, the final leg of my journey.  There should be somewhere between 12 and 18 more posts before I'm done, but they might be pretty spread out!  We shall see  .  .  .

Special thanks to any who are praying for me on this journey.  I post all my pretty pictures, and it is really amazing to be here doing this!  It is enriching my mind and soul in profound ways.  But there are parts that can be tricky or even scary, especially while traveling alone - so, again, thank you!!