JUNE 137 



grave-pits on the downs. Indubitably there were heavy 

 arrears in the matter of sanitation, and the town council 

 set about wiping them off with a will. But also they 

 wiped away a great deal that would be reckoned priceless 

 now. Besides the wreck of Hyde Abbey above mentioned, 

 and the loss of King Alfred's gravestone, we have to 

 lament the destruction in 1778 of the Hospital of St. Mary 

 Magdalene on Morne Hill, because vagrants used to 

 harbour there. Then the ruins of Norman Wolvesey, 

 where Saxon landowners used to deliver their annual tale 

 of wolves' heads, were broken up for road-metal, and these 

 hard-hearted reformers spared not even the city gate 

 towers, whereof three out of five were demolished between 

 1789 and 1791. By good luck two of them escaped the 

 Westgate, dating from 1266, at the instance of some 

 citizens whose houses had been built against it; and 

 Kingsgate, because it bears over its archway the little 

 church of St. Swithun. One other monument was in even 

 greater peril the Butter Cross, namely a fine example 

 of fifteenth-century work, and a conspicuous ornament 

 of the High Street, adorned with a small statue of St. 

 Laurence. This had actually been sold by the commis- 

 sioners; but popular feeling was in arms against the 

 removal of such a familiar landmark, and the bargain was 

 cancelled. It is difficult to understand the callousness 

 which prevailed a hundred years ago in respect of the 

 preservation of historic monuments, and to reflect without 

 impatience on the vast number that were needlessly 

 swept away. 



Still, heavily as Winchester has been plundered, sorely 

 as war has wasted her buildings, and not less sorely the 

 acts of ambitious prelates and energetic councilmen, much 



