corporation as a tenement and had a pigsty within it!

[Illustration: CITY CROSS, WINCHESTER.]

The ancient castle and residence of the Kings of England is now
represented only by the Great Hall, dating from the early part of the
thirteenth century. It is used for county business and is a good
specimen of the domestic architecture of the time. The great interest
of the hall is the reputed Round Table of King Arthur, placed at its
west end. Experts have decided that it cannot be older than 1200. The
painted names upon it are those of Arthur's Knights. These were
executed in the reign of Henry VIII and replaced earlier inscriptions.
The Hospital of St. John Baptist is in Basket Lane. Established by
John Deverniche, one of the city fathers, in 1275 for the succour of
aged wayfarers, it was suppressed at the Reformation, but reverted to
its original purpose in 1829, and is thus one of the oldest living
foundations of its kind in the kingdom.

Charles II desired to revive the royal glories of Winton and
commissioned the erection of a palace which was unfinished when he
died. After being used as a barracks, the fine building was
practically destroyed in 1894 by a disastrous fire. This element was
almost as great an enemy of old Winchester as the reformers
themselves. On one occasion the town was fired by a defender, Savaric
de Mauleon, on the approach of a French army under Louis the Dauphin.
When the other, and junior, capital was receiving its cleansing by
fire in 1666, Winchester was being more than decimated by the plague,
which was as direful here as anywhere else.

The city is 1,025 years old as a corporate town. Its staple business