Like most of our cathedral cities, Winchester is well supplied with charitable institutions, although the best known of them all, the famous Hospital of St. Cross, is situated a mile away from the city proper.  The Hospital of St. John, within Winchester, is one of the oldest foundations of the kind in the country, and a portion of the vaulted kitchen remaining in the building may not unreasonably be supposed to have formed part of the almshouse thought to have been founded on the spot in A.D. 935 by St. Brinstan.  The chapel connected with the charity dates from the time of the third Henry, and contains a piece of fourteenth-century carving depicting the nimbed head of the Saviour, which is now built into a wall.  Considerable doubt exists as to the original founder and early re-founders of this hospital, and little is known concerning it until the time of Edward II, when John Devenish re-founded it.  At that period it seems to have been for the “sole relief of sick and lame soldiers, poor pilgrims, and necessitated wayfaring men, to have their lodging and diet there for one night, or longer, as their inability to travel may require”.  Many influential citizens left money or property to this charity.  In 1400 Mark le Faire, Mayor of Winchester, bequeathed to it several houses, including the “great inn called the George”, and the “house under the penthouse where Mr. Hodgson died”.  Richard Devenish, in the time of Henry VI, left a sum of money to provide for a more frequent performance of divine service in the chapel; but in the reign of Henry VIII these and other funds were confiscated, although the building itself was subsequently restored to the Corporation.

[Illustration:  BEAUFORT TOWER AND AMBULATORY, ST. CROSS]

After the Reformation, Ralph Lambe re-founded the charity for six poor and needy persons, who were to have six separate homes or chambers within the hospital, each furnished with locks and keys.  Each person was to receive ten shillings quarterly, with a gown value ten shillings, and ten shillings’ worth of coal yearly.  On the election of a new mayor each was to receive two shillings, and any funds remaining were to be divided among the inmates at the discretion of the mayor and aldermen of the city.  This institution is still a flourishing one, and the original hall, standing to the west of the chapel, is let as a public dining-hall.

Another old charity was that of St. Mary Magdalene, founded for lepers, in 1173-88, by Bishop Toclyve, the inmates being known locally as “the infirm people upon the hill”, now Maun Hill.  In early times lepers were required to give up the whole of their personal goods, and one of the questions asked by the official visitor to the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene was whether the goods of the deceased inmates went to the works of the church after the settlement of debts.  The funds of this foundation were much tampered with at various times, and it lost some of its property at the Reformation.  One