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 of its benefactors left to it four
flitches of bacon yearly, this being an important article of diet. The
original plan of the hospital was quadrangular: on two sides were the
inmates' rooms and the chapel, the remaining sides being occupied by the
Master's House and the common hall. The buildings were much damaged in
the time of Charles I by the troops stationed there, and again in the
reign of Charles II by the Dutch prisoners confined within the hospital.
The chapel was pulled down in 1788, and the materials were used for
building purposes, when the fine Early Norman doorway was used in the
Roman Catholic Church in St. Peter Street, where it may still be seen.
This was the west doorway of the ancient hospital chapel. The site is