Winchester Saint Swithun's shrine. Left-overs from the lavish banquets of the Priors (the monastic predecessors of the later Deans) would be given to the pilgrims who were welcome to spend the night in the hall. It is thought by Winchester City Council to have been built in 1308. Now part of The Pilgrims' School, the hall is used by the school for assemblies in the morning, drama lessons, plays, orchestral practices, Cathedral Waynflete rehearsals, the school's Senior Commoners' Choir rehearsals and so forth. Entrance to the North garth of the cathedral, for pedestrians is via the Norman arches of Saint Maurice′s
New Minster, Winchester was also given the body of the Breton Saint Judoc (Saint Josse), making it an important pilgrimage centre. Queen Emma added the head of Saint Valentine in 1041. It became a Benedictine house in 963. With the building of the new cathedral at Winchester after the Norman Conquest of England, the monks of New Minster were obliged to move to Hyde Mead just outside the northern city walls, thus founding the Abbey of Hyde. New Minster, Winchester The New Minster in Winchester was a royal Benedictine abbey founded in 901 in Winchester in the English county of Hampshire. Alfred the