[Illustration: STATUE OF ALFRED.]

The Hero-King was buried, first in the cathedral, and then in the
Newminster. After the destruction of this building by fire, his
remains were removed to Hyde Abbey on the north of the city. This met
the fate of most other monasteries at the Dissolution, and the site of
the final interment and, according to some accounts, the actual
sarcophagus itself, were desecrated by eighteenth-century vandals in
order to build a lock-up!

The bronze figure of Alfred, standing with sword held aloft as a
cross, on its colossal block of granite at the bottom of High Street,
is an inspired work by Hamo Thornycroft. It was erected in 1901 to
commemorate the millenary of the king's death and is the most
successful statue in the kingdom, imposing in its noble simplicity.

High Street is still quaint and old fashioned, though it has few
really ancient houses. "God-Begot House" is Tudor and the old "Pent
House" over its stumpy Tuscan pillars is very picturesque. Taking the
town as a whole it can hold its own in interest with the only other
English medieval city worthy of comparison--Chester. The visitor must
have a fund of intelligent imagination and a blind eye for
incongruities and then his peregrinations will be a remembered
pleasure. The beautiful gardens belonging to the houses around the
close and the black and white front of Cheyney Court will be
recollected when more imposing scenes have faded.

The "George Hotel," though it but modestly claims to be "old
established," is said by some authorities to stand on the site of an