The great monastery
is gone, scarcely a sign of it remains. Nothing at all is left of the
famous nunnery of St Mary. Of Wolvesey Castle there are a few beautiful
ruins, of Hyde Abbey, all has been swept away, even the stones, even
the bones of Alfred. Nor have the other and later religious houses,
with which Winchester was full, fared better. It is difficult to find
even the sites of the houses of the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the
Austin Friars, the Carmelites. And what remains of the College of St
Elizabeth, and, but for a Norman doorway, now in Catholic hands, of the
Hospital of St Mary Magdalen? Only the Hospital of St John remains at
the east end of the High Street, still in possession of its fine Hall and
Chapel, and the great school founded by William of Wykeham in 1382,
"for seventy poor and needy scholars and clerks living college-wise in
the same, studying and becoming proficient in grammaticals or the art
and science of grammar." It remains without compare, the oldest and the
greatest school in England, whose daughter is Eton and whose late
descendant is Harrow.
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