The same fate which has so brutally overtaken the churches of Southampton has, with perhaps more excuse, fallen upon the old religious houses.  The Priory of St Denys, founded by Henry I., upon which all these churches within the walls were in a sense dependent, has been totally destroyed, a piece of ruined wall alone remaining, the present church of St Denys dating from 1868.

Nor does much remain of the Hospital of St Julian or God’s House, founded for the poor in the town, by Gervase le Riche, in 1197.  It was one of the most important hospitals in the diocese of Winchester, and in 1343 the King, its protector, gave it to Queen’s College, Oxford, just founded by Queen Philippa.  As the possession of this college it survived the suppression, and was still carrying on its good work in 1560.  About 1567, however, certain Walloons, refugees from the Low Countries, settled in Southampton, and these were granted the use of St Julian’s Chapel by Queen’s College.

The house should have remained to us, but that in 1861, by as black an act of vandalism as was ever perpetrated, this seat of learning swept away all the old domestic buildings of the hospital, which dated from its foundation, and in their place erected what we might expect, at the same time “restoring” the chapel of St Julian, of course, out of all recognition.  May St Julian forget Queen’s College, Oxford, for ever and ever.

[Illustration:  THE TUDOR HOUSE, OPPOSITE ST MICHAEL’S CHURCH, SOUTHAMPTON]

Not far from this hospital for the poor the Grey Friars built their house in 1237, or rather the burgesses of Southampton built it for them, including a cloister of stone, but nothing remains at all of this house.

For the most part, too, the great houses that of old filled Southampton, and helped to glorify it, are gone.  “The chiefest house,” writes Leland, “is the house that Huttoft, late customer of Southampton, builded on the west side of the town.  The house that Master Lightster, chief baron of the King’s exchequer, dwelleth in, is very fair; the house that Master Mylles, the recorder, dwelleth in, is fair, and so be the houses of Niccotine and Guidote, Italians.”  Of these, what remains?  Nothing.  The only noble dwelling is that called Tudor House, in St Michael’s Square, a fine half-timbered building, and of this nothing is known.

No, the only thing to be enjoyed in Southampton to-day is the old wall with its gateways, that upon the west still valiantly outfaces the modern world and recalls for us all that noble great past out of which we are come.  And yet I suppose Southampton is fulfilling its purpose to-day more wonderfully than ever before.  It was once the port of England for those dominions oversea we held in France.  They are gone, but others we have since acquired, though less fair by far, remain.  It is to these Southampton looks to-day, south and east, as of old over how many thousand miles of blue water.