Winchester: The soke

THE SOKE

In the old eastern suburb of the city, the ancient liberty of the Soke, is Cheesehill Street, running north and south, east of the main arm of the Itchen, (fn. 1) which formed the military fosse of the eastern wall of the city. Cheesehill Street takes its name from being the site of the chesil or gravel bank on which the boats laden with timber and stone, &c., coming up the Itchen from Southampton were grounded. The church of St. Peter Cheesehill, on the west side of the street, is at its north end, at the bottom of the hill as the ground runs uphill to the south. Nearly opposite is an old house of early 16th-century date which has been considerably rebuilt, although the front remains fairly complete. It is of half-timber construction and is in two gables with a projecting upper story. The timber framing is rather heavy and widely spaced, and in the gables, which have cusped barge-boards, partly restored, takes the form of king-post trusses. The window frames are all later insertions and the ground floor is now used as a shop. As Cheesehill Street, here a few yards east of Water Lane, joins Bridge Street (a continuation of the High Street, so called after it crosses the Soke Bridge), the latter curves uphill, sending off one branch to the north, St. John's Street, past St. John's Church to the site of the old Bub's Cross and itself a few yards higher merges into Morn Hill (Magdalen Hill) Road, which runs west and north of St. Giles's Hill. Bub's Cross, which was standing in 1750, (fn. 2) but pulled down before Dr. Milner wrote in 1798, (fn. 3) was in existence at least as early as the 16th century. (fn. 4) West of Bub's Cross, Redhouse Lane leads down to Water Lane, on the east side of which is a group of old cottages facing south, which were built in 1789 in place of the original Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen on Morn Hill. (fn. 5) Beggar Lane, so called, it is said, from having been the gathering-place of beggars who waited there until the city gates should be opened, runs north from the site of Bub's Cross.