with nave and chancel.  The nave part was a large hall divided by partitions on each side of an alley into little cells in which the bedesmen lived.  Daily Mass was celebrated in the chancel, the chapel of hospital, whither the inmates resorted; but the sick and infirm who could not leave their cells were able to join in the service.  St. Mary’s Hospital, at Chichester, is an excellent example, as it retains its wooden cells, which are still used by the inmates.  It was formerly a nunnery, but in 1229 the nuns departed and the almswomen took their place.  It is of wide span with low side-walls, and the roof is borne by wooden pillars.  There are eight cells of two rooms each, and beyond the screen is a little chapel, which is still used by the hospitallers.[59]

  [59] The Treasury, November, 1907, an article on hospitals by
  Dr. Hermitage Day.

Archbishop Chichele founded a fine hospital at Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, which saw his lowly birth, together with a school and college, about the year 1475.  The building is still in existence and shows a good roof and fine Perpendicular window, but the twelve bedesmen and the one sister, who was to be chosen for her plainness, no longer use the structure.

Stamford can boast of a fine medieval hospital, the foundation of Thomas Browne in 1480 for the accommodation of ten old men and two women.  A new quadrangle has been built for the inmates, but you can still see the old edifice with its nave of two storeys, its fifteenth-century stained glass, and its chapel with its screen and stalls and altar.

Stamford has another hospital which belongs to our second group.  Owing to the destruction of monasteries, which had been great benefactors to the poor and centres of vast schemes of charity, there was sore need for almshouses and other schemes for the relief of the aged and destitute.  The nouveaux riches, who had fattened on the spoils of the monasteries, sought to salve their consciences by providing for the wants of the poor, building grammar schools, and doing some good with their wealth.  Hence many almshouses arose during this period.  This Stamford home was founded by the great Lord Burghley in 1597.  It is a picturesque group of buildings with tall chimneys, mullioned and dormer windows, on the bank of the Welland stream, and occupies the site of a much more ancient foundation.

There is the college at Cobham, in Kent, the buildings forming a pleasant quadrangle south of the church.  Flagged pathways cross the greensward of the court, and there is a fine hall wherein the inmates used to dine together.