Ancient St Giles Hill

St Giles Hill sits un the east side of Winchester, the city's old East Gate (now demolished) below. In medieval times St Giles Hill was referred to as East Hill. It overlooks the East Soke of the city and had probably been important as a meeting place since early times. The hill takes its name from a medieval chapel or church that stood on the hill. The hill and chapel were first mentioned in 12th century texts but archaeological evidence suggests that humans used the site from early Palaeolithic times. The Romans and the Anglo-Saxons used it as a burial ground.

 

Bronze age urn found on St Giles Hill

The use of St Giles Hill by Bronze age peoples is evidenced by the small bronze age cinerary urn shown below. It is made from a coarse grog-tempered fabric with reddish patches. It originally had a decorated collar with a twisted cord design (only a fragment survives). The item is stored in the Winchester Museum archives. An old label says it was presented to the museum by Alderman Thomas Stoper j.p.

Several Roman finds have been reported from the site of St Giles Hill Graveyard or close to it. The location of the finds is only approximate. These include the 19th c discovery of a tessellated pavement, in 1894 some Roman vessels,  and various finds in the 19th and 20th c., and in 1827 in St Giles Cemetery a Roman coffin. 19= inhumation (1978)

The most impressive is (HER ID: 27087 and 27088) a complete Roman coffin made out of chalk discovered at St Giles Hill. by workmen excavating for a vault.  The coffin contained a perfect human skeleton dressed in linen and sandals, as well as a metal urn. The date of discovery is given as 1968 but it is probably the same find as listed by Patrick Otterway as 1827.

Roman fines on St Giles Hill

Anglo-Saxon St Giles Hill

St Giles Hill was the site of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery.

Anglo-Saxon St Giles Hill

The image below is a clip from the Hampshire section of "A Gazetteer of Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Sites" by Audrey Meaney (published in 1964). It lists some of the known Anglo-Saxon finds from St Giles Hill. Several finds are from inhumations and graves, the items are listed as being in Winchester Museum. I visited the archives of the museum service at Bar End to investigate. Some of the finds were located in the archives and some are displayed in the museum on the 1st floor.

Most are metal objects buried with important Anglo-Saxon people. They are kept in the sensitive store at Winchester Meuseum and considering there age are reasonably well preserved having had preservation material applied by the museum service. Many of the finds were donated to the museum in the period 1850 to 1905. This was a time of great change on St Giles Hill with a lot of building going on.

Excerpt form the publication a "Gazetteer of Early Anglo-Saxon Burial sites"

Anglo-Saxon artifacts found in the gardens of Palm Hall date uncertain.

Items WINCH:ARCH 367.1 and 367.2 are cataloged as being found in the garden of Palm Hall. These could be the two items listed in the gazetteer as being found in Palm Hill Garden in 1944.  This might be an error, the correct date being 1894.  The accession number suggests the find date would be earlier.

In 1905, several graves were found when a summer awning was being put up in the garden of High House (now renamed Earlsdown).

Five Anglo-Saxon knives from St Giles Hill.

To the left five of 6 Anglo-Saxon Knives that were mentioned in an article in the Hampshire Chronicle in 1894. The tweezers below were also noted.

Location of Palm Hall and High house (renamed Earlsdown) - 25" OS map 1894

Sheild bosses, sheild rivets and spear found in 1894

Glass beads presented to museum in 1894

Anglo-Saxon objects from St Giles Hill

Several finds were presented to the museum by Alderman Jacob from Palm Hall (probably found 1894). These include glass beads (WINCM:ARCH 369-4), a large annular bead of yellow glass, and several smaller blue bands with ornamental shapes.

WINCM:ARCH 368 is a small buckle in two pieces.

St Giles Hill Fair

St Giles Hill is also important as the site of St Giles Fair, one of the largest and most profitable medieval fairs in Western Europe. The fair was held annually from 1096 on the three days of the Saint's vigil, the feast day on 1st September, and the day following. It reached its peak in the 13th century and then declined in importance. It attracted merchants from many lands. The fair supported a permanent settlement ‘Nova Villa’ whose site included the flat land on top of St Giles Hill and extended eastwards to include Magdalen Hill Down.

 

Map St Giles Hill Fair