The greater part of the building here is due to Cardinal Beaufort--the gateway, hall, master’s house, and all the lodgings on the west side. He called the hospital the “Almshouse of Noble Poverty,” and provided an endowment by which some brethren who had “seen better days” should be added to the thirteen of the De Blois foundation. A distinction between the two classes is kept up, the Beaufort men wearing red gowns, but there are very few of them. I heard that a clergyman was here a few years since, but resigned his place. Provision was made for the maintenance of eleven servants and fourteen horses. The present revenue is about £6,000 a year.[101] [Sidenote: St. Catherine’s Hill.] On leaving the hospital, instead of returning as I came, I went to the right through a gate and over a stream; and, following a northerly path across the fields by the engine house, crossed the Itchen to St. Catherine’s Hill, which I saw rising close to me. There was formerly a chapel on it, the tower of which was blown down in 1268, but the building was there in Henry VIII.’s time. [Illustration: St. Catharine’s Hill from St. Cross.] A splendid view opened as I climbed the height. On the summit I inspected the mismaze. It is fancifully said to have been cut by the boy who wrote “Dulce Domum.” But when we consider the Cerne Giant and the White Horse we shall consider it due to the vicinity of the monastery, and made by the monks for amusement or penance. It is not a labyrinth properly so-called, because if you enter at one end you cannot fail to reach the other. I saw some children, who had been playing “touch wood” in the neighbouring clump of pines, walking through it, and they said it could be done in four minutes. Here I stand within a magic circle--a line of circumvallation which transports me to a past when there was a wild population here that threw up intrenchments to protect themselves and their cattle from attack. The large circuit of this embankment shows that the habitations around the neighbourhood were not sparse; for we may be sure that when they had to throw up the earth with their hands, they would not make it larger than necessary, and when they lived much on game they did not require great space for cattle. These remains are especially interesting in connection with the many “Druidical” monoliths found about this part of the country. [Sidenote: Origin of Winchester.] We may say that this was the original site of Winchester. When the people became powerful and more constantly centralized, they settled on the lower ground, as at Bristol and Salisbury. Some twenty miles to the south-east there is a fortified height known as “Old Winchester hill,” and so-called from a tradition that the town at first stood upon its summit.