Winchester, Painted by Wilfrid BallVarley, Telford
History
Winchester, Painted by Wilfrid Ball
Varley, Telford
Winchester (England) -- Description and travel; Winchester (England) -- History; Winchester (England) -- Pictorial works
Most appealing, perhaps, after Hall, possibly more even than Cloisters,
is ‘Seventh Chamber,’ Wykeham’s original schoolroom, or part of it at
least, now used as a common study for senior College men, and a
veritable museum of interesting reminders of old Wykehamical life
mingled confusedly with aggressively incongruous and more modern
‘intrusive deposits,’--here perhaps a framed ‘Vanity Fair’ cartoon of
the headmaster; there possibly a couple of Teddy Bears serving as
mascots--for in college life the points of contrast between ancient and
modern are curious and startling, while not the least alluring of its
characteristic features is the rich flavour and vigour of college
nomenclature. ‘Moab,’ the boys’ washing-place in earlier and less
luxurious days--“Moab is my wash-pot”--is a delicious example of this.
College phraseology is a subject almost worthy of separate treatment by
itself.
‘Seventh Chamber Passage,’ itself originally part of Seventh Chamber,
leads you to ‘School,’ the seventeenth-century schoolroom built by
Warden Nicholas. Here you may see the ‘thrones’ or official seats in
earlier days of headmaster and usher, and the world-famous Winchester
emblem on the walls--
Aut disce
Aut discede
Manet tertia sors--caedi.
which may be freely rendered--
Learn, or depart, or stay and be beaten;
though it is more than doubtful whether, in the experience of earlier
Wykehamists at least, the first and the last-mentioned fates were at all
often found to be mutually exclusive.
Beyond is ‘Meads,’ where ‘Domum’ is yearly held, and beyond, again, ‘New
Meads,’ with its magnificent sward, its lofty trees, and its memories of
‘Eton Match’; and right away again, across the river, ‘Hills’ lies in
full view--St. Catherine’s Hill, where Winchester boys in earlier days
repaired for recreation on ‘remedies’ or holidays, the joys of which may
be followed out in full in Bompas’s delightful life of Frank Buckland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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