Smokeyeti retweetledi
There is a door in England that has been open since 1132. 🏛️
It was built during a civil war. The Anarchy. Villages burned. Crops destroyed. People starving.
Legend says it began with a peasant girl. She stopped a Bishop on his winter walk by the river outside Winchester. She begged him to help her people.
He didn't turn her away.
He was Henry de Blois. Grandson of William the Conqueror. Brother of King Stephen. One of the most powerful men in England. He could have done anything with that power.
He built a place where any stranger who knocked on the door could be given bread and ale. No questions asked.
It was called the Wayfarer's Dole. 🍞
And once it began, it never stopped.
Two hundred years later, the Black Death came. Half of England died. The bread kept being given.
When Henry VIII closed every monastery in the country, he left this one standing.
When Cromwell's army surrounded Winchester, the door stayed open through the siege.
Through the Wars of the Roses. Through the Civil War. Through both world wars.
Whatever Britain went through, the bread kept being given. ⏳
Today the place is called the Hospital of St Cross. It sits just outside Winchester, the oldest charitable institution in England.
Twenty-five elderly Brothers still live there, in robes that haven't changed since the medieval period. The Wayfarer's Dole is still served on a wooden tray at the porter's lodge to anyone who walks up and asks.
The same bread. The same ale. The same open door.
894 years later.
Whether or not the girl was real, every hungry stranger who has knocked on that door has stood in her place.
A Bishop said yes to a girl in 1132.
The British people have been saying yes ever since.
Be part of us.👇
👉 proudofus.co.uk/support 🙏
Be Proud Of Us.🇬🇧
English
