St. John’s Charity - TrustNews August 1989
A Brief Note on one of Winchester's Oldest Institutions
There is a famous story of a meeting between Queen Elizabeth I and the then Winchester Mayor. "Yours is a famous city Mr Mayor" to which the answer was "It has a-been, it has a-been". A modern tourist, one of the thousands who come here in a hurry, on the way to something else, may well be satisfied with a quick dash around the Cathedral and an even quicker look at the Round Table. He will have "done" the place, like the tourist who said to my husband who was waiting for a service to begin in the Cathedral: "I'm glad they've found a use for this old building". If that visitor had had time to walk to Winchester's Broadway and stood looking north, by the side of Thornycroft's fine statue of King Alfred, he would have seen the Chapel of St. John, and some significant remains of its Hospital, older in origin than the Norman Cathedral and older than the most famous of its Norman Hospitals, St. Cross in the village of Sparkford.
This brief note is not the place to discuss the origin of St. John's Hospital; read The Lives of the Bishops by that greatest of all English historians, the monk William of Malmesbury, who was in Winchester at the time of the terrible Civil War between the Empress Matilda and her cousin Stephen. Malmesbury saw the great confrontations in which Stephen's brother, Henry de Blois - then Bishop of Winchester - took a major part. De Blois, the founder of St. Cross, and his monks at the Cathedral, certainly knew the story of St. John's and must have told Malmesbury of Bishop Brynstan, Bishop of Winchester for a mere four years (931-4), and famous for his piety, who founded the Hospital by the East gate and who appeared as a spirit to Bishop Ethelwold.
This very early, and undoubtedly very small Hospital, had developed by the early Middle Ages into a large group of very well known buildings, used for various purposes and including a Chapel at the east end, with an adjoining Domus, Hospicium, House. The Chapel, dedicated to St. John, lay on the north side of what is now called the Broadway. The House was a separate building lying along the same line; both were built of flint with only a very little stone, and behind lay a large garden where the citizens might walk on holidays. This House had been substantially improved in the later Middle Ages under the direction of a famous Mayor, Mark le Fayre. There appear to have been dormitories for men and women, with quasi cubicles where the sick and the old could be cared for in a fair measure of comfort. A large number of yearly account rolls have survived and show that the almspeople were well cared for and properly fed. There were nurses, cooks and, above all, a Master, who was almost always in Orders, and cared for the spiritual life of the almsfolk, was responsible for the administration of the Hospital and undertook the saying of regular services in the Chapel.
In the 16th century a wealthy London citizen, Ralph Lamb, was responsible through his own generosity for the building of six small late medieval almshouses which were to replace the long dormitories; these alsmhouses were built in part of the large garden which later became the site of others. The custom therefore began of giving local almspeople an individual house. By the time of the Commonwealth, the little houses were almost always used for widows. After the exeuction of Charles I, the "widows" garb, carefully described in a contemporary account roll, were black cloth gowns with silver buttons. Each widow had her small house, with a separate fireplace, though at the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was a communal cooking range.
Within the Chapel there were two Chantry Chapels, the result of private charity, one endowed by Sir Simon de Winton, a very wealthy Winchester draper and landowner who eventually became a country gentleman, a Judge of Assize and a New Forest Justice. He owned many manors, lived to a great age and was succeeded by his grandson in 1316. At a later date, a second Chantry was built by a wealthy West-country Mayor, John Devenish, sometimes incorrectly described as the Founder of the Hospital. A third Chantry, built by another Devenish in Winchester Cathedral, completes the picture of the Devenishes as founders of the Hospital, a legend embroidered by the famous 17th century historian, John Trussell, whose other inventions included the "first" Mayor of Winchester, Florence de Lunn, depicted on the facade of the present Guildhall and shown receiving a mythical Charter from Henry I, and also commemorated in the De Lunn buildings at the north end of Jewry Street. Trussell was studied by Winchester's later historian, John Milner, who corrected some of his mistakes and knew that the real Founder was Bishop Brynstan.
The yearly account rolls of the Hospital, most of them in excellent condition, show St. John's to be the largest landowner in the city, as it probably is today. The Cathedral and Hyde Abbey both owned much land in Hampshire and in other counties, but St. John's had property in the City where the financial return was good and could be regulated, a fact which remains the source of its present strength; this has enabled the Hospital to improve its care for the sick almsfolk instead of sending them to other Hospitals. In the Middle Ages, men and women came to the Hospital if they were ill or if they were poor, but it was not a Hospital for patients with infectious diseases; sufferers from that particular malaise, leprosy, were left to die in Winchester's leper hospital, St. Mary Magdalene on the Eastern Hill. Nor was St. John's a maternity Hospital, that very recent development in nursing care.
Yet from its early days, St. John's was not just a Hospital. It was a Hospice, in the medieval sense. Here the treasures and the documents of the Corporation were kept under the care of the Warden or Custos. Here there were regular feasts, especially on St. John's Day, and the important Winchester processions assembled and walked through the city. The most important of all these was that of Corpus Christi, when torches had to be carried and the citizens and their families were allowed to walk in St. John's great garden; all this came to an end with the Reformation when Chantries were made illegal and the Chapel was left empty, stripped of its furnishing.
It could be said that eventually St. John's was saved by lawyers. The Catholic revival of Queen Mary's reign was implemented in Winchester by William Laurens, a lawyer of much talent, not Winchester born, able and tactful. One of his most wealthy clients was the young Londoner, Ralph Lamb, who gave St. John's new life not only by endowing the six small almshouses, already described, but also by providing a new source of income from property in Winchester High Street (the Dolphin corner of St. Thomas' Street amongst them), and land outside the city which were all valuable pieces of real estate.
In 1588, Winchester gained a new Charter from the Queen, the result of careful negotiations in London between some members of Parliament and another powerful Winchester lawyer, Edward Cole. By this Charter, St. John's was handed over to the City Corporation, with all its problems. Not the least of the problems was the empty Chapel, stripped of it treasures, and the derelict Chantries. The solution was soon to come. A wealthy Winchester doctor, William Over, had left his estate for the foundation of a school for boys. As usual, the will was contested, and lawyers had to be paid, but eventually a small legacy came to the city; the only problem remaining was where the school children might be taught, and eventually the Corporation agreed that the Chapel might be used. This was a highly successful decision which lasted for over a hundred years and effectively bridged the gap until Winchester's Central Schools were built; the Chapel was then emptied and made ready for its restoration by G. W. Street, a pupil of Owen Browne Carter, and for its continued use by the residents of St. John's.
By that time, great changes had taken place in the Broadway, and in the social life of Winchester. The Hampshire County Hospital had begun to solve some of the problems since its foundation by Canon Alured Clarke in 1737, in Colebrook Street. Lamb's almshouses were much beloved and always in use, and there were additional legacies to St. John's. The House, however, had become a problem as it was no longer used as an infirmary, but it was solved by a major legacy from one of the two Members of Parliament, George Bridges of Avington. The money was left to the Corporation when he died in 1741, specifically to redecorate St. John's and provide a magnificent meeting place for the local gentry and their friends, modelled on the Assembly Rooms at Bath. "St. John's Rooms" came to fill a particular place in Winchester's life for nearly two hundred years.
Yet by the beginning of the 19th century there was a general feeling in Winchester that all was not right at St. John's, and that the place needed reforming, very largely because the Corporation was mis-managing the Hospital's funds. There were only five widows and two of these were persuaded to give evidence in Chancery; there had to be a substantial inquiry into the Corporation's income, much of which was derived from Hospital real estate. There were long inquiries, and in the end the Hospital's property was separated from that of the Corporation, and an Act of 1829 required the Hospital to be governed by Trustees who were eventually allowed to manage the Hospital and who were truly representative of Winchester society, including the Bishop of Winchester and local professional men, lawyers, doctors and influential shop-keepers. The new Trustees were headed by Samuel Deverell, in whose house in Colebrook Street the Trustees met until they built St. John's South, with its Trustees' Board Room over its gate, to the design of William Garbett, the Cathedral's first permanent architect, and finished after his death by Owen Browne Carter. From 1829 onwards, St.John's has been governed by Trustees.
Balls, concerts, private parties and lectures at St. John's Rooms became a regular feature of Winchester life, succeeded by later activities which included a museum of stuffed birds, elections, meetings and lectures in aid of good causes. The glittering decor of the 18th century, with the city's pictures splendidly hung in their great surrounds; Charles II by Lely, with the two Members of Parliament, Bridges on one side and his contemporary, Paulet, on the other, all of which were moved from St. John's with the construction of the new Guildhall and, at a slightly later date, it's Banqueting Room. St. John's great "Room" again became a problem.
Very recently indeed St. John's Hospital has become St. John's Winchester Charity, absorbing other charities, and is renovating its important Southgate Street property, also the architectural work of Owen Browne Carter - a few people have long recognized the value of his contribution to the Winchester scene. Change has come to St. John's, and it has survived two World Wars and endless political and social problems, not least the major changes of the early 19th century, when it passed from the Corporation to independent Trustees. There are bound to be future changes, although change for its own sake is not necessarily good for Winchester. The careful work going on in Southgate Street, which will no longer make it necessary for almspeople to leave the loving care of St. John's if they are seriously ill, is in the best traditions of an institution which has served Winchester residents for a thousand years.
Later this year, Barbara Carpenter Turner's book on St. John's will be published by Phillimore under the title of St. John's Winchester Charity. Ed.