, because of the victory of
Alfred at Ethandune, a century and a half before, when he had made
Guthrum and his host Christians. Till the year 1788 Alfred's bones lay
beside this very gate through which the beaten Saxons poured into his
city in 1001. For though Hyde Abbey was destroyed at the Reformation
his bones seem to have been forgotten, to be discovered in the end of
the eighteenth century in their great leaden coffin and sold, I know
not to whom, for the sum of two pounds.

I considered these unfortunate and shameful things as I went on along
this British, Roman, Saxon and English way, the way of armies and of
pilgrims into Headbourne Worthy, whose church stands by the roadside on
the north.

This little church dedicated in honour of St Swithin is all of a piece
with the road, and illustrates it very well. Its beauty alone would
recommend it to the wayfarer, but it also possesses an antiquity so
great that nothing left to us in Winchester itself can match it. For in
plan, and largely in masonry too, it is a Saxon sanctuary, though a
late one, dating as it would seem from the early part of the eleventh
century. What we see is a beautiful little building consisting of nave
with curious western chamber, chancel, south-western tower and modern
south porch. The original church probably did not differ very much in
plan from that we have, but only the north and west walls of the nave
of the original building remain to us; the latter having the original
doorway of Binstead stone. The south wall of the nave and the tower
were rebuilt in the thirteenth century, as was the chancel, which is
now a modern building so far as its north and eastern walls are
concerned. In the late fifteenth century the western chamber was added
to the nave as in our own day the south porch. The best treasure of the
church is, however, the great spoilt Rood, with figures of our Lady and
St John, upon the outside of the west wall of the Saxon nave, to
preserve which, in the fifteenth century, the western chamber was
built. The western chamber was originally in two stages, the lower
acting as a porch to the church, the upper as a chapel with an altar
under the Saxon rood. It is needless to say that the Reformers, Bishop
Horne of Winchester it is said, the accursed miscreant who ordered the
destruction of all crucifixes in his diocese, defaced this glorious
work of art and religion, cutting the relief away to the face of the
wall so that only the o