Winchester University

This is the West Downs Centre of Winchester University just off the Romsey Road. The University's Business School is based here, along with the Link Art Gallery. This building was originally part of West Downs School until its closure in 1988. The old school remained empty until 1994 when it was acquired by the University of Winchester for renovation. Winchester University is one of the newer universities and was established in 1995 when the government decided that colleges could become universities. It was previously King Alfred's College of Higher Education.

Winchester therefore has a lot of students which I think is a good thing, as we also have a large 6th form college, Winchester College and the Winchester School of Art.

St Thomas & St Clements

This building is not actually used as a church anymore, it is the former church of St Thomas and St Clements in Southgate Street. The church was built in 1847 and the spire added around 10 years later. The church, after over a hundred years of use, was declared redundant in 1969. It was used as the Hampshire Records Office until 1993 and now used by Hampshire County Council.

Winchester in Bloom part 2

Just a few more of the floral displays currently around town. The winner has already been chosen and will be announced in October.

Link Gallery

Over the last week it has been the Hampshire Open Studios, where artists open their studios and galleries to the public. Yesterday we visited the Link Gallery at Winchester University which is part of the Open Studios event and is showing contemporary paintings in a mixture of styles by a group of artists called 2D3D South Contemporary Art

And if you look carefully at this one you may recognise some things you've seen before on my blog!

Take Flight

Currently at the library (Winchester Discovery Centre) is an art exhibition called Take Flight which features work by artists inspired by the world of birds and the environments in which they live. Here are a few of the paintings. Normally they don't like you to photograph in here, but this time they didn't raise any objections! This weekend is the Hampshire Open Studios where artists in Hampshire open their studios to the public to visit, so I hope to be able to get some photos over the next few days.

Crown and Anchor

 

Will he, won't he decide to go in?! This is the Crown & Anchor pub in the High Street. I haven't been in here myself. There has been a pub on this site since the mid 19th Century. The current building dates from the early 1930s. As you can see it's also quite floral, I have a feeling the pub is always like this rather than trying to win the Winchester in Bloom prize as I have seen other photos of it with just as many hanging baskets.

The White Swan

The White Swan pub is in Hyde Street in Winchester. Although this is geographically probably the closest pub to my house I prefer to go to the King Alfred pub in Hyde. The pub has been in existence since 1784 and was referred to at some time in the past as The Mucky Duck.