Winchester

River Itchen

 I'd been looking forward to this trip for a while, and if you have been reading my blog a while you will know that Winchester is my favourite city. This time I was going to be there for two nights with a friend. Apart from a concert on the Tuesday night, we hadn't decided where to visit, but we certainly packed in a lot of attractions!

A little street art


We arrived on Monday at lunchtime, dumped our luggage at the hotel, and headed to Winchester Cathedral Refectory for something to eat. Afterwards (and a visit to the gift shop), we wandered down to the River Itchen by the bridge and followed the path to the ruins of Wolvesey Castle, the old Bishops' Palace. There are more fences up as parts are unsafe these days. There's plenty of information boards with pictures of how the palace looked in its heyday.

Later, we decided to pop into the Cathedral for Evensong at 5.30pm. Although I'd been inside the Cathedral quite a few times, I'd never been to a service there before.

Evensong was held in the choir stalls, the blue decoration above the wooden paneling stood out in the low light. It was a lovely service where the congregation do very little. The idea is that you sit and immerse yourself into the service and only respond to end of prayers. The singing was beautiful and the atmosphere just right.

The following day we set off to The Great Hall built by William the Conqueror. The Great Hall is all that is left of the buildings that once stood here. There are castle remains, parts of the walls and underground passageway, which you can get a glimpse of through a gate, but a fire destroyed the rest. The Assizes courts had been here for decades, even into fairly recent times, but there is now a purpose built Magistrates Court next door to the Great Hall complex. 

Castle passageways 

The Great Hall




Queen Eleonor's Garden is a lovely peaceful area with a fountain. Here you can still see parts of the old existing walls from older times. The Long Gallery follows the history of the Great Hall and former buildings. In the gift shop are many things to purchase, and while there is no cafe, there are toilets. The entrance ticket also gives you entry to the Westgate Museum, a smaller museum standing at, yes, the West Gate into the city. The tickets also last a whole year, so you can visit both as many times as you like during the year.

Queen Eleanor's Garden

View from outside looking across to the down (Law Courts to the right)

The Westgate Museum (see link for The Great Hall) is essentially one room at the top of a long dark staircase. The building was used as a debtors prison for around 150 years, and you can see prisoner graffiti on the walls. The ceiling is a nice feature, and when you have had a look around, and you have a head for heights, you can climb up onto the roof and get a view of Winchester's High Street, the oldest one in England, so the information board tells me. In the distance you can see the south downs which right now are beautiful in autumn colours.

Prisoner grafitti, Westgate Museum





Abraham & Isaac

Alderman Jacob

View from the roof

The staircase to Westgate Museum


After our walk around the museums, we trudged up St Giles Hill at the other end of the city for the most excellent view across Winchester. Again, the autumn colours came into their own. Winchester was once the capital of England, the seat of everything, and also had connections with Southwark in London. A few weeks ago, I talked about Southwark and Winchester Palace near Southwark Cathedral. The palace is a ruin now, but Bishops from Winchester were often there.

View from St Giles Hill



Later, we wandered past Winchester College and decided to book a tour of the buildings at the last minute. With just over an hour to spare, we went for some refreshment before wandering back. 

Winchester College



Our guide gave us a bit of the history of the college which opened in 1394 by its founder William Wykeham to help 70 poor boys have a free education. Though today it is a private school with fees around £15,000 per term, there are bursaries, and we were assured that some pupils pay nothing, while others only a fraction. The school takes pupils from 13-18 years and now also admits girls from 16, though at the moment they don't board as there is not enough space. However, building work is going on to allow that to happen in the future.

We were taken around parts of the college (there are other tours you can take, like a garden tour, or college war cloisters, but we particularly wanted to see the college). We were surprised to find out that there was no central heating until into the 1980's. After one bad winter, pupils built snowmen inside the hall and they did not melt! This was the turning point, because parents were likely to withdraw their children. However, for the poor boys in the past there were also no bathrooms, and the only place to wash was outside in the courtyard where there were two taps an a cup (see photo).

The larger chapel






The dining hall reminded us of Hogwarts! We had a look at the currrent menus, and the food sounds nice. There are two chapels, one larger than the other. We walked a set of cloisters with plaques to former pupils, including George Mallory who died on Mount Everest.

Dining Hall




Wash time!

The tour lasted about an hour. One other interesting fact is that there was a brewery on the school site. Small beer was given to the boys, and quite a lot of it! Those days, of course, water wasn't fit to drink (some might say it isn't now!), but the River Itchen which passes by very close to the college is a chalk stream and our guide reckoned it was pure enough to drink straight from the river. Certainly it is very clear and looks tempting!

Cloisters


George Mallory


The smaller chapel at the cloisters



Former brewery


The Treasury is free to visit, and we added that on to the end of our tour. Here there was more about the college history, along with artifacts and objects collected, including pottery and ceramics from China.

Inside The Treasury

Map of the world with Jeruselem in the middle



Chinese objects




On the way back to our hotel we nipped into St Swithun's Church, which I always like to pay a visit to. Right by Kingsgate, it is an 'upper-room' church which is still used today, and part of three churches.

Altar cloth, St Swithun's





In the evening we headed out to the Theatre Royal to see a folk band. Peter Knight's Gigspanner Band. They were sensational. We weren't sure what to expect, but they were amazing. Peter Knight is the former fiddle man from Steeleye Span, remember them? No photos were allowed as they were recording that night, but I have found this video on YouTube. There are also sound files available on their website through Soundcloud. We both had a great time, and I ended up buying one of their CD's, as well as ordering their new album, which isn't quite ready for release.



The next morning, as we didn't have to check out until midday, we visited the Old Mill, which hadn't been open before that week. They still mill here, and there is plenty of information about its history and the working of the mill. There is a cafe (& toilets, plus a second book shop - yes I did buy two books!) and downstairs you can see the river rushing through underneath you. There are regularly otters here and there are cameras on the area where they go. We didn't see any otters, but they had been there the day before. 


Old City Mill



Gardens, City Mill


Outside there is a lovely garden which had changed since I was last here. So much planting has taken place, and it looks beautiful. Either side the river runs, and this is a peaceful place with benches, tables and chairs.

Before checking out, there was just time to make a visit to St Lawrence Church, part of the same group of churches as St Swithun's. I love the glass doors of this church, and its position in the alleyway just off the Buttercross, makes it a peaceful haven from the buzzing city with its shops and people.

Bench, Church of St Lawrence






And then it was all over. We had certainly made the most of our time in Winchester. I hope you have enjoyed this worldwind tour of my favourite city. Believe it or not, there are still parts of Winchester I've not visited, though not much! There are walks I still want to do too, so I will be back.




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