and choir, have been entered into with the local committee, and the work will be commenced forthwith. As St. David's Cathedral is the mother church of Wales, there can be no doubt that the movement will appeal to the heart of the entire Principality; and that within the next ten years, not only the choir and nave, but also the now roofless side aisles and lady chapel will again don something of the ancient glory of that mediæval magnificence which was theirs when the shrine of St. David was an object of pilgrimage to saints and kings. To the committee we would only suggest that in inaugurating this good work they take as their motto the well-known words -Donec templa refeceris and they need not entertain a fear lest their work should turn out a failure. The above was written in 1864. Since that time the nave, tower, choir, and transepts of the venerable cathedral have been carefully restored in the most ' conservative' manner under the care of the late Sir G. Gilbert Scott, at the cost of about 25,000l. 70 AN AUTUMN DAY AT WINCHILSEA. WHILST staying, a few weeks since, in the neighbourhood of Hastings, an antiquarian friend suggested to me by chance that I should find a great treat, and some occupation for a pleasant autumn day, in an excursion to the ancient city of Winchilsea, distant some eight miles by road or by rail. Accordingly, I made my way by rail to that famous place-nearly, that is, but not quite; for the Winchilsea station is in the saltmarshes which lie between the town and Udimore; and I found the serpentine road which led me to the foot of the hill on which Winchilsea is built, a walk not much short of a quarter of an hour's duration. I should here remark that, although I have called Winchilsea an 'ancient' city, a great distinction must be drawn between the present town and what an antiquary would recognise as 'old' Winchilsea. The site of the latter place was a low flat island, some three miles south-east of the high hill on which the present town stands, at what was then the mouth of the river Rother. But here, as at Yarmouth 1 and Shoreham, the action of the sea has so changed the outline of the coast during the last ten or twenty centuries, that it is almost impossible to identify the site with precision. This much, however, is certain, that 'the old town was separated from most of the adjoining localities by a wide waste of waters,' and that 'the path to it on every side, except the west, was over a large estuary.' 2 Geographers are no less puzzled as to the exact site of old Winchilsea than etymologists are to account for its name. According to Mr. W. D. Cooper, it is a matter of doubt whether the town existed at all at the time of the Roman conquest. 'Camden,' he writes, 'does not lay it down in his maps of Roman or even of Saxon Britain: in his map of Sussex he gives it under the Roman name of Vindelis,3 with the addition 'Old Winchilsea drowned,' but that name would be more correctly given to the Isle of Portland. Jeake tells us that 'it was reported by Johnson in his Atlas, to have been a city in the time of the Romans.' In Gough's edition of Camden, and in the Map of Ancient Britain, published by the Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge, the harbour is given as 'Portus Novus.' The spot, however, on which the old town stood is 1 See below, p. 141. 2 The History of Winchilsea, by W. D. Cooper, F.S.A., p. 1. Butler, in his Atlas of Ancient Britain, also gives this th site of Vindelis. |