31 July 2011

The Pentice

The Pentice is a colonnaded walkway with row of old buildings, now all shops, within the High Street

*** I am away on holiday now for 2 weeks so have scheduled these posts to appear (hopefully!). Thanks for any comments & sorry if I don't respond straightaway. For my nearest location see Lisbon city daily photo and head south! ***


30 July 2011

Arch

There is a random arch in the Cathedral grounds. I imagine it was part of something once, a wall perhaps?

The little dog to the left of the photo is mine!

*** I am away on holiday now for 2 weeks so have scheduled these posts to appear (hopefully!). Thanks for any comments & sorry if I don't respond straightaway. For my nearest location see Lisbon city daily photo and head south! ***

29 July 2011

Tea or Coffee?

A snap from the cafe at the Hospital of St Cross

28 July 2011

Under 1 year to go..

It is now under 1 year to go until the London 2012 Olympics, despite best efforts, and despite actually working on the Olympics project I have only managed to get tickets to see a football match and that's not even at the Olympics park! Anyway...in honour of the countdown here is a photo from Winchester Sports Stadium. Owned by the University of Winchester the Winchester Sports Stadium opened in 2008. The Stadium’s Athletics track comprises an eight-lane track and field sports facilities, an all-weather pitch which is suitable for hockey and football. The stadium put itself forward as a pre-Olympics training ground and had interest from the Tunisian Para-Olympic team.

27 July 2011

Tomb

This is a 12th century tomb within the Cathedral. As the board says in front of it says it may contain the remains of the Bishop of Winchester Henry of Blois brother of King Stephen and founder of the Hospital of St Cross.

26 July 2011

Parkin House

This is Parkin House in St Thomas's Street. It was probably built around1805 by Henry Godwin, a solicitor. The property remained a solicitors, Godwin Bremridge & Clifton, until 1988 (the solicitors moved to number 12 just down the street) No 8 now houses ARUP a global firm of consulting engineers.

25 July 2011

Stained Glass at the Cathedral

One of the many stained glass windows in the cathedral

24 July 2011

Tea Tales

Until 11 September at Winchester Discovery Centre (formerly know as the library!) is the Tea Tales exhibition. Hampshire County Council's Museum Service is displaying their finest china, oldest tea pots and fanciest tea gowns, to tell the fascinating history of tea. There are also a number of tea related events are being held, including a tea dance, afternoon tea and a Mad Hatters Tea party for children.

23 July 2011

War memorial

War memorial at West Hill Cemetery.

22 July 2011

Market Street

This is the 1st time I've actually seen a market in Market Street. This photo was taken during the Hat Fair a few weeks back.

21 July 2011

West Hill Cemetery

Another view from West Hill cemetery

20 July 2011

Cathedral

Just one of the many photos I've taken of the Cathedral

19 July 2011

Lavender

Some pretty lavender at the gardens of Peninsula Square

18 July 2011

West Hill Cemetry

In the 1830's Winchester did not have a cemetery and the graveyards of the City's churches were overcrowded and so a Portsmouth grocer called Mr Benny saw a business opportunity and created a cemetery here! The cemetery is now closed to new business..

17 July 2011

St James Tavern

I have to admit that I have never actually been into this pub! It is on the Romsey Road just past Peninsula Square going into the Fulflood area of Winchester. It does food, has live music and French conversation classes.

The pub dates from at least 1860, it is named after St James Street which is what the Romsey Road used to be called.

16 July 2011

To London

I went up to London yesterday by train and this is a photo of Winchester Train Station and tracks heading towards the 'new' capital of England!

15 July 2011

St Swithun's Day

Today is St. Swithun's Day and this is St Swithun's shrine in the Cathedral. St Swithun is one of the best known of the many Bishops of Winchester. He was born in Winchester, in about AD 800 and was famous for his charitable gifts, church building and tutoring King Aethelwulf and his son Alfred the Great. Swithun died 862 and was buried outside the Old Minster. Not long after his death there were talks of miracles he performed, his best known was his mending of a basket of eggs that had been broken. He then became Saint Swithun.

The Old Minster was expanded in the tenth century to become Winchester Cathedral, and St Swithun’s relics were moved into it on 15 July 971. This occasion was marked by very heavy rainfall, and the tradition became that if it rains on St Swithun’s Day, it will rain also for the next forty days, as per the rhyme:

St Swithun’s Day, if it does rain
Full forty days, it will remain
St Swithun’s Day, if it be fair
For forty days, t’will rain no more

Today it is .... Sunny, so fingers crossed it will stay that way for the next 40 days - unlikely though the forecast for the weekend is not good!

14 July 2011

Nets

During the open day of the Dean's Garden a couple of weekends ago I wandered past some cricket nets which I believe belong to Pilgrims School. These are used to practice bowling and batting for cricket.

13 July 2011

St Cross

A photo of the Hospital of St Cross is England's oldest continuous almshouse, which houses 25 'brothers'. The Norman church dating from 1135 in the photo is all that remains of the original Hospital.

12 July 2011

Cornflowers

On the corner of College Street and Kingsate Street is Cornflowers which is the Winchester College Gift Shop. Profits from the shop help fund a place for one of the sixteen Quiristers at the college (choir boys).
The building was once the Winchester College Tuck Shop, and is named after the blue flowers that are worn by Winchester supporters on Winchester Day.

11 July 2011

King Alfred

This was taken in the lovely pub garden of my local 'The King Alfred' last weekend during the sunshine. It's a nice pub in the area of Hyde in Winchester. It serves good food and is also a bed and breakfast.

10 July 2011

Peninsula Cafe

Not a great photo, but just thought I'd snap this as I was leaving Peninsula Square as I'd had a comment about the cafe here. It opened (or perhaps re-opened) in April 2010, but there was some controversy initially over the name. The new owner decided to call the cafe The Falling Plates Cafe, but apparently this offended some of the military still based at Peninsula Barracks as 'Falling Plates' is a derogatory nickname for heavy casualties suffered in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan. After a Facebook campaign and local press coverage the owner changed the name to Peninsula Cafe in September 2010 and everyone was happy.

09 July 2011

Dolphin Inn

On the corner of the High Street and St Thomas Street is a building currently a clothes shop called Joules. This building was built in 1883 originally as a pub, in a mock Tudor style. The pub was called the Dolphin Inn and there had been a pub of the same name on this site since medieval times. The Dolphin closed its doors in 1981 and I think has been a shop ever since. A closer look over the door you can see the name of the old pub and 2 fish-like creatures.



08 July 2011

Hat Fair

My last photo from the Hat Fair which took place last Friday-Sunday. Just a few more of the entertainers that were performing in the centre of Winchester around the High Street and Cathedral, also at Oram's Arbour and North Walls recreation park.

07 July 2011

Play me!


As part of the Hat Fair a number of pianos have been left around Winchester for people to play. I have been learning to play for about 6 months and I am finding it virtually impossible to do a different thing with each hand! However it seemed like there were a lot of people in Winchester who could play pretty well, including a couple of very young children who started drawing crowds!

06 July 2011

Crowds

This is the first year I have been to the Hat Fair in Winchester and I was amazed at the crowds and amount of people in there. Here's a couple of photos from the Cathedral grounds where there were a number of acts and stalls, as you can see it was packed!


 *** I am away for a few days so have scheduled these posts - sorry if I don't respond to any comments straightaway - for my nearest location please see http://whatisbelgium.blogspot.com/ ***

05 July 2011

Weirdness at the Hat Fair

Continuing with last weekend's Hat Fair, this performance in front of the Cathedral was a bit Cirque Du Soleil with some extra weirdness thrown in for good measure! Not quite my cup of tea but it seemed very popular!

*** I am away for a few days so have scheduled these posts - sorry if I don't respond to any comments straightaway - for my nearest location please see http://whatisbelgium.blogspot.com/ ***

04 July 2011

Hat Fair

More from the Hat Fair which took place over the weekend. This is the Southampton University Folk Band playing outside the Guildhall.

*** I am away for a few days so have scheduled these posts - sorry if I don't respond to any comments straightaway - for my nearest location please see http://whatisbelgium.blogspot.com/ ***

03 July 2011

Mini Golf

The Hat Fair seems to have something for everyone, if you're not into the street entertainment how about some mini golf by the Cathedral!

02 July 2011

Hat Fair

Today, yesterday & tomorrow it is the Hat Fair here in Winchester. The Hat Fair is Britain's longest continually running festival of street theatre and outdoor arts. It has been running since 1974, and the 'hat' refers to the hats that performers passed round after their performance for donations.

Winchester is packed right now and here in the High Street we saw a performance by Matt Pang involving juggling, escaping from a straight jacket whilst riding a unicycle amongst other things!

01 July 2011

Gardens at Peninsula Square

Another view of Peninsula Square, it has some lovely communal gardens, I bet the service charge for their upkeep is quite a bit though!

I guess there's enough green in this photo for it to glass as a 'green' theme day photo!

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