GEORGE INN, WINCHESTER, _1840, June 21_. At Winchester we established ourselves at the George and then without delay proceeded to St Cross. I did not know before the nature of its hospital establishment, but I find that it is a veritable set of alms-houses. The church is a most curious specimen of the latest Norman. I never saw one so well marked before--Norman ornaments on pointed arches, pilasters detached with cushion capitals, and various signs: and it is clearly an instance of that state of the style when people had been forced by the difficulties and inelegancies of the round arch in groining to adopt pointed arches for groining but had not learnt to use them for windows.......This morning after breakfast went to the Cathedral (looking by the way at a curious old cross in the street). I thought that its inside was wholly Norman, and was most agreeably surprised by finding the whole inside groined in every part with excellent late decorated or perpendicular work. Yet there are several signs about it which lead me to think that the whole inside has been Norman, and even that the pilasters now worked up into the perpendicular are Norman. The transepts are most massive old Norman, with side-aisles running round their ends (which I never saw before). The groining of the side aisles of the nave very effective from the strength of the cross ribs. The clerestory windows of the quire very large. The organ is on one side. But the best thing about the quire is the wooden stall-work, of early decorated, very beautiful. A superb Lady Chapel, of early English. * * * * * PORTSMOUTH, _1840, June 23_.