We passed with her out of the back door, and saw some very dilapidated tiled gables. What surprised me most was to find that a clear stream of water, about a yard wide, flowed under these houses. This, then, was the “fishful” rivulet of Æthelwold, the Lourtebourne, which he brought from Headbourne Worthy (by a lower channel, I think, than that by the Nuns’ Walk), to cleanse and refresh the monastery.[94] It was covered here with tombstones. I crossed by one, taken of course from the neighbouring graveyard, which commemorated some of the Henley family who lived in the seventeenth century. Stones of this kind, as well as monoliths, are utilized here, for stone is scarce about Winchester. The flight of stairs up to Morestead Church, which stands above the road two or three miles from this is formed of tombstones. “I hope that they have been steps to heaven in every sense,” said Mr. Hertford. We left the little dwelling very favourably impressed with the old lady, and were surprised and sorry when we heard that she was obliged to be in receipt of parish relief.[95] Passing by Bishop Morley’s almshouses for matrons we regained the High Street, and we now proposed to make a circuit to look at the streets on the other side. [Sidenote: Decay.] Winchester declined greatly in Henry III.’s time, and Edward I. removed the royal residence to London, and although at Wykeham’s solicitation Edward III. made it one of the chief wool marts in England, he added another disappointment when he removed the “staple” to Calais. From a dismal complaint presented to Henry VI. by the inhabitants, it would appear that the greater part of the town was then almost a heap of ruins. It states that the “Desolation of the saide powere Citee is so grete and yerelye fallyng for there is such decaye that withowte graciose comforte of the kynge oure Soweraigne Lord the Maire and the Bailiffs must of necessitee cesse to delyver uppe the citee and the keyes into the Kynges Handes.” Seventeen parish churches and 997 houses were void, and within eighty years Jewry Street had fallen from eighty houses to two, Fleshmonger Street from 140 to two, Colebroke Street from 160 to sixteen, Calpe Street from 100 to six, Gold Street (Southgate Street) from 140 to eight, Gar Street from 100 to none. In its palmy days, soon after the Conquest, the city extended to St. Cross, Wyke, Worthy, and Magdalen Hill, and in Henry I.’s reign the population was about 20,000, but so greatly did it decrease that all the progress of this century has only just brought it back to that number. It is said that there were once 173 churches and chapels here, probably an over-statement. In Edward III.’s time there were 44, among them All Saints in Vineis,[96] St. Nicholas extra Pisces, St. Martin’s in Fosseto, and St. Peter’s in Macellis. Now there are eight; Bishop Fox disestablished many because there were no funds to sustain the clergy. [Illustration: The Penthouse.]