the time of Henry III the privilege was extended to sixteen days.  The stalls were arranged in long rows, and named according to the goods sold thereon, or after the nationality of the vendors.  Thus one row would be named the Street of Caen, another that of Limoges, while the Drapery and Spicery stalls were held by the monks of St. Swithun, who proved themselves energetic traders at the great annual fair, which lasted until modern times, and was removed in due course from St. Giles’s Hill into the city.  Dean Kitchin writes:  “As the city grew stronger and the fair weaker, it slid down St. Giles’s Hill and entered the town, where its noisy ghost still holds revel once a year”.

At the present day St. Giles’s Hill is a pleasant spot from which to view the venerable city.  Down the valley, by the Itchen, rises the Hospital and Church of St. Cross, a picturesque and peaceful group of buildings viewed from any position, but particularly so taken in conjunction with the ancient city and the fertile valley threaded by numberless small streams.  On the left side of the valley is St. Catherine’s Hill, a bold and outstanding spur crowned with a small belt of trees surrounded by a circular earthwork.  At one time a chapel dedicated to St. Catherine capped the hill, and slight traces of the building may yet be seen.  Here is the interesting maze, said to have been made by a Winchester College boy who was obliged to remain behind during the holidays, but probably of a different origin, some antiquaries holding the opinion that it is of great antiquity, and in some way connected with ecclesiastical penance.

Looking citywards, one can see the towers of many churches rising above the gables and chimneys of the houses.  Near at hand are St. Peter’s, Cheeshill, and St. John’s, the former an interesting little building with a mixture of styles, among which the Norman and Early English predominate, the windows being of a later period.  The bell turret is situated at the south-east corner of the building, which, as a whole, gives a singular impression, due to the fact that it is nearly as broad as it is long.  St. John’s Church is the most interesting in the city, containing as it does a fine rood screen, with the rood-loft stairs still existing in a turret of fifteenth-century date.  Other features of interest are the fourteenth-century Decorated screens that enclose the chancel on each side, and an arched recess at the east end of the north wall, containing an altar-tomb with quatrefoil panels supporting shields on which are the symbols of the Passion.  The tomb itself bears neither inscription nor date.

Here also are a set of carved bench ends, a Perpendicular pulpit, and an octagonal font.

Unfortunately, most of the other churches of Winchester have been either rebuilt or so altered as to retain very little of their original architecture.  The Church of St. Maurice, rebuilt in 1841, has saved a Norman doorway, fragments of a fine Decorated screen which now serve for altar rails, and an ancient chest.