Tag Archives: Winchester

Almshouses In Winchester

Old English towns often have almshouses somewhere near the center and Winchester is no exception.  We wandered under an archway and came upon some old places that definitely had the look of almshouses and turned out to be exactly that.  Some maintenance was underway (which required some careful angling of the camera) but they seemed in good shape.  It was a peaceful little space given how close it was to the center of the city.

Ducks Fighting The Current

The River Itchen runs through the center of Winchester and, just downstream of the old mill building, the water is very shallow.  The river bed provides a good location for a lot of weed to grow and the ducks seemed to enjoy feeding on this weed.  However, it did require a fair amount of effort on their parts as the current was flowing fast in the shallow areas.  It was fun watching them either paddling furiously or bracing against the river bed while dipping their heads under water to feed.  The water would sometimes roll up across their backs while they fought to stay in place.  After watching this for a while, guess what I chose to have for dinner!

Building A Cathedral On Boggy Ground

Winchester Cathedral was not built on the best of ground.  About 100 years ago, a major effort was made to save sections of the building from collapsing.  A diver spent many months under water in the pilings beneath the building bringing in material to shore everything up.  The effort was ultimately a success and some buttresses were added to take care of the rest.  However, this all was done after the walls had made some significant movement.  Today, this is still apparent when you look at some of the angles and realize that things are pointing in odd direction.  The original stone masons were not inaccurate.  Things just moved after they were done.  Their choice of foundations was more of the issue!

Winchester Cathedral

First stop on our vacation was Winchester.  It has been quite a while since I was last there and I didn’t remember much about it.  The cathedral is the center of the city of old and we had a stroll around to see it.  Later, Nancy took a visit inside but I never got around to doing that.  Instead, I have to make do with some shots of the exterior of the cathedral.  It will reappear in another post before too long, though.