Had a city break with Mum in Winchester a couple of weekends ago. Think our previous break was in Birmingham, which
looking back at the blog was in 2014 - longer ago than I thought.
Mum caught an early train to Reading on the Saturday morning and I drove us down, having elected to drive given the location of
Winchester’s Premier Inn not far off the
M3 – though in the event it wasn’t quite as easy to locate as we’d expected, thanks to unclear signage from the motorway. We parked and walked down into the city centre, visited the tourist information place in the old Guildhall and then went to find somewhere for lunch, ending up at
Bistro La Place close to the cathedral.
After lunch we did a short walk around the city courtesy of a leaflet we’d picked up at the tourist place. This started from
King Alfred’s statue at the end of the High Street and set off towards the City Bridge, where we diverted to visit the
City Mill thanks to our
National Trust cards. Quite interesting, especially the lower level where you can cross over the millrace to look at the waterwheel. Nice little garden area out the back. After that we walked along the pretty
River Itchen past the city walls, paused briefly to watch some charmingly polite
prep school boys playing cricket (sporting shouts of “Oh, good fielding!” from one boy as one of his colleagues managed to stop a ball) and went to look at
Wolvesey Castle, the ruined former bishops' palace.
Walked past
the house where Jane Austen breathed her last and went to have a look at the darling little church of
St Swithun-upon-Kingsgate, accessed by a staircase to one side of
the medieval city gate.
Briefly visited a secondhand book fair outside the Deanery before finishing the walk outside the
cathedral.
We spent some time looking round the cathedral, though Mum was disappointed that the full view down the nave wasn’t possible due to it being screened for some building work. Visited the crypt – I’m never sure whether
Sound II is actually meant to be standing in water, or whether the crypt just floods intermittently – on the day we visited the floor appeared largely dry but with distinct damp patches.
This says that the crypt does flood during rainy months.
On the Saturday evening we went for dinner at
The Wykeham Arms, a pub that appeared from a bit of pre-trip research to have a decent reputation. Indeed it was very nice, with an atmospheric bar and cosy restaurant area, which was certainly packed out with diners. Ruth, who got her degree from what’s now the
University of Winchester but was then King Alfred’s College, informs me that she had her family graduation dinner there, though that would have been some years back.
Although
this 'top 10 places to eat in Winchester' resource reckons it's a favourite of Colin Firth's, we didn't spot him.
On the Sunday we had breakfast at the hotel before setting off to do a walk courtesy of a Ramblers’ Association '14 Walks in and around Winchester' booklet Mum had bought at the tourist information place the day before. I’m saying Ramblers’ Association, but in fact I’ve just noticed that the organisation appears to have renamed itself
The Ramblers. Perhaps the word ‘association’ was considered to sound too earnest for the modern age.
The walk we chose was the 'Winchester - St Cross - St Catherine's Hill' walk of about 4 miles, though in fact for us it was about six miles due to the walk in from the hotel and back. Followed the 'Weirs' walkway from the City Bridge along the old City wall, then past some school buildings to follow a pretty path between the River Itchen and a mill stream, where we saw some adorable weeny ducklings. Further on we passed the stunning
Hospital of St Cross, apparently the largest medieval almshouse in Britain. Later we moved into some interesting transport history, joining
Five Bridges Road, now
closed to traffic but apparently formerly the
A333 - hard to believe now. One end of it met the former Winchester Bypass at the
Hockley Interchange, an apparently notorious
crossroads - the good chaps at SABRE have
an article on the Winchester Bypass plus lots of pics of it at various stages of its life. It's now completely gone - seemingly as some sort of
compensation to the locals for putting the M3 through Twyford Down.
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| Part of the old city wall |
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| Mum descending St Catherine's Hill |
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Close to the old junction there's also the remains of a Victorian railway bridge and a path leading up onto the
Hockley Viaduct, which once carried a railway line but is now a footpath. We went up onto the viaduct to have a brief look, before turning back towards Winchester along a path that follows the
Itchen Navigation, a disused canal. Detoured off the path again when we got to
St Catherine's Hill, as I fancied going up it - in fact we didn't go all the way up, but far enough to get good views of the surrounding area. After that we followed the Itchen Navigation back into the city and ate some M&S sandwiches sitting in the
Abbey Gardens, before Mum walked back to the hotel and I looked around the shops briefly. In the evening we ate dinner at
Prezzo.
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| Dinner at Prezzo |
On the Monday morning we went for breakfast at the lovely
Forte Kitchen, where Mum had Eggs Benedict and I had a stack of pancakes and bacon. We rounded off the stay with a walk through the
Winnall Moors Nature Reserve. The link suggests quite a range of wildlife that one might see there, but we failed to see anything though were taunted by interesting-sounding bird calls from within the reeds. We also failed to spot a single water vole the entire weekend, despite lots of signs telling us there were voles aplenty in the area.
Here's a photo of one on the Itchen Navigation.
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| Boardwalk at Winnall Moors Nature Reserve, where Mum didn't see a sedge warbler |
