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Published: September 22nd 2022
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Always Love This Style of Buildings
which is quite wide spread here in Winchester We had completed our cat sitting on August 17
th in Chichester and had another one to start on August 19
th so had to find some place to stay for the evening of August 17
th and 18
th. Where do we go? We looked at the map and train schedules and found that Winchester looked like a good location. We didn’t find an Airbnb there, but found a hotel right in the center of town so plan was set.
We didn’t know anything about Winchester but found it has a long history. It has been determined that the first permanent residents were during the Iron Age in 150 BC. The Romans then came and built the town in a grid pattern for their homes, shops and temples. In the 3
rd C. the previously wooden walls were changed to stone. The Romans lost power here in 407 AD and the town was pretty much abandoned. In 597 Christianity spread here and with it the bishop became powerful. In the middle of the 7
th C. the Bishop moved his seat to Winchester and as a result the Bishop’s Palace was built. It was later fortified to change the look from a Palace into a
Castle which is called Wolvesey Castle (or Old Bishop’s Castle). During the English Civil War in 1646, the Palace was destroyed and the ruins are now maintained by the English Heritage. The Wolvesey Castle is set close to the Cathedral, but also near the Itchen River.
After visiting the Wolvesey Castle, I took the time to have a lovely walk next to the Itchen River. I found out that it is part of the Camino to Santiago which of course I remember from our wonderful time in Spain quite a few years ago. It was a lovely break from exploring the town as it was a very peaceful and restful walk which was a nice change from our constant “in town touring mode”.
The Saxon’s came to power and in 871 King Alfred, who was born in Winchester, came to power. As a result, Winchester became the Capital of England. Henry III was born in Winchester Castle and he decided to have the Great Hall added to the Castle. It took between 1222-1235 for this addition. It is the only building remaining to this day of the Castle (Palace). We visited the Great Hall and learned more of
the history of the area. On one wall of the Great Hall there is a very large round table. The story goes that it is King Arthur’s Round Table, however, with research done on it, it appears to have been built in the 13
th C. It has been determined that Henry VII requested that this table be built with the pictures of King Arthur’s Knights painted around the edges. The figure representing King Arthur has an amazing likeness to Henry VII himself – what a surprise!
The City Mill was mentioned in the Doomsday Book of 1086, but there was also reference to it in the Cathedral records of 932. The mill was rebuilt in 1744 and continued as a working mill until the early 1900’s. During WWI it was used as a laundry and then offered for sale in 1928. To save it from destruction it was opened as a Youth Hostel and continued as that until 2005. It was interesting as when we were visiting, a gentleman came to visit and said he had been there as a guest at the hostel and was describing how it was set up at that time! In 2004 work was
started to renovate it and return it to its function as a working mill. That took 12 years to accomplish, but once it was completed it has been a working mill every since. They have a café there now and shop where you can buy produce as well as tour the mill. The interesting difference in this mill is that the water actually runs under the wheel, rather than over the wheel. An enjoyable place to visit if you happen to be in Winchester.
We learned that there are 7 military museums located here as well. In looking over the list of them, we saw that there was a museum dedicated to the Gurkha’s that served the United Kingdom. As this was something we had heard about but didn’t know a lot of detail, we decided to visit this one while here. It is a small museum, but nicely set up as it starts off with explanations of who the Gurkha are as a people with their known characteristics of being a caring people that work together to accomplish what needs to be done in a very harsh mountainous environment. There were numerous displays, the first section included cultural
items of the people such as their jewelry, cookware, musical instruments and the like. They then told of the numerous years the Gurkha were recruited into the British service, how the process was conducted and of the various campaigns they were involved in. They had examples of their uniforms as well as the numerous military awards received by many. They had a special exhibit upstairs which then went into the civic activities that they also serve such as firefighting, rescue work, medical assistance when needed and many others. As mentioned, it was a small museum, but very comprehensive and gave a better picture of who the Gurkha are and the contributions they have provided to the service of the United Kingdom not only here but in numerous other parts of the world as needed.
There is a Cathedral here in Winchester that makes quite a statement based on its pure size. We typically visit the Cathedral’s but this time we bypassed it. We only had a short time in Winchester so decided to take our time to visit other places of interest. In reading information about the Cathedral later, we may have been sorry we didn’t visit due to
the long history here, but we had to cut out some and decided this would be the one to cut.
As mentioned in the beginning we only were staying 2 nights here with one full day to tour the area. We can see that if we had more time we could have enjoyed even more of this very historic area. Now on to the train station to get to our last cat sitting while in the UK!
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