THE following volume treats in somewhat fuller detail the Winchester sections of the larger work on Hampshire published last year under similar auspices. Where much of the ground traversed is identical much has been necessarily repeated, and a considerable portion of what follows is little more than an amplification of what has been already dealt with in the earlier volume.
The present work in no way aims at being a history, though much of it is cast into a historical mould. Still less is it a guide-book. Its aim has been selective, and it makes no pretence to completeness. In following out some of the numerous avenues of Winchester interest, which seem to open out continually in fresh and unsuspected directions as soon as one commences to wander through her confines, many have received but a cursory examination, and many more have been entirely ignored. The author can only hope his readers will be able to accompany him with pleasurable interest along those which inclination and circumstance have led him to explore.
The authorities consulted have been numerous, and from the following published sources of information, as well as many others, valuable information has been obtained:—
Bede, The English Chronicle, The Winton Domesday, The Liber de Hyda, Rudborne’s Major Historia Wintoniae, various of the Annales Monastici, the valuable historical documents published some time back by the Hampshire Record Society, Milner’s History, Mr. Kirby’s and Mr. Leach’s volumes on Winchester College, Dean Kitchin’s Winchester in the Historic Towns Series, and Adams’s Wykehamica. The author regrets that, through a lapsus calami, the title of Bramston and Leroy’s Historic Winchester was misapplied in the Hampshire volume to Dr. Kitchin’s book. For this error he here apologises. Finally, the author wishes here to express his thanks to many friends who in various ways have assisted him in what has been to him a most pleasant task, viz., that of serving in some degree, though but inadequately, as chronicler to his adopted city.
THE AUTHOR.
WINCHESTER, JUNE 1910.