Wessex and Winchester Cathedral

Friday, February 20, 2009
Winchester and Portsmouth

Holborn was stirring slowly when I took the bus along Gray's Inn Road to King's Cross and found my way to NIDO, our student dorms on Pennington Road. Despite being told several times that our departure was scheduled for 7. 45, six of my students thought it was 8. 15 am and did not show up. The coach left at 8 am sharp with six students missing. They took the train from Waterloo and arrived at Winchester where they joined us later in the day.

Moira Ferguson and Alice Coltenfeanu were in the coach with me as we swung out of London (past the suburbs of Chiswick and Putney) and drove through Hampshire. I realized that this was the route Stephanie takes to work each day as the signs for Andover/Salisbury began to show up on the motorway. We made one pit stop about ten minutes before we arrived in the charming but very tiny town of Winchester where we parked by the towering bronze sculpture of Alfred the Great, King of the ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. He was he who united the warring factions of the neighboring counties. Though the Romans had made Wessex their base long before Alfred's reign (having been in Wessex between 40 and 400 AD), it is he who is credited with making the town that eventually became Winchester a seat of power by creating mints all over so that the people would have monetary security as well as encouraging commercial activity on what is now the High Street. As I walked along the High Street, noticing its older (mainly Tudor) structures, I realized how many millions of feet had trodden these streets over the centuries and I felt awed.

There has been a Mayor of Winchester for almost as long as there has been one in London and it
was at his 'house'--called the Mayor's Abbey--that our walking tour of the town began with a trained guide. It was the Romans who redirected the flow of the River Itchen towards the outskirts of the town and the result is a number of fast flowing canals that wind around pretty gardens that were just starting to bloom. I saw more clumps of snowdrops and loads of primroses. The sun was out and a more welcome sight I haven't seen for days as it poured its golden rays upon the cathedral walls.

It wasn't long before we were entering the precincts of the grand Cathedral for which the town is famous (remember the song "Winchester Cathedral" of the 1950s?). No matter how many cathedrals I visit in the UK, they always come upon me with a mixture of surprise and awe--surprise that in the so-called Dark Ages (what an insult to the achievements of that era!) such a level of architectural expertise existed that could allow the construction of crypts that went way down into the soil bed and upon which the weight of so many thousands of tons could be supported; and awe at the craftsmanship of the carvers who then went on to embellish these structures with their talent. No doubt, it was these structures, speaking so eloquently of the religious ardor of the time, that kept so many of them employed for a lifetime.

The guide explained so many aspects of the exterior of the Cathedral and pointed out the importance of the Bishops of Winchester in their role as ecclesiastical prelates. We passed by the Bishops Quarters, lovely Tudor structures with their exposed beams and stucco walls, then went beneath the walls of the town above which is one of the smallest churches in the UK and the only one left in the country that is actually built upon city walls--the Church of St. Swithun-at-Kingsgate. Just past it is the home where Jane Austen spent the last six weeks of her life with her sister Cassandra. She came to Winchester as her doctor was based in the town to seek treatment for her illness that could have been Hodgkins Lymphoma or Addisons Disease (no one is sure). Her brother was Archdeacon at Winchester Cathedral--a fact that granted permission for her to be buried in the nave, one of the last burials to be conducted in the precincts of the Cathedral. There is a brass memorial to the author on the wall nearby. In the Fisherman's Chapel, where 17th century Issac Walton has been buried, there is beautiful stained glass window referred to as the Compleat Angler window. Later, we went down to the crypt that was actually flooded (as water still seeps into the crypt from the water bed below) and saw the sculpture by Anthony Gormley of a solitary man brooding--these sculptures, of course, are cast from his own body after he wraps himself in cling film! My students and I had seen a bunch of his sculptures at Crosby Beach in Liverpool, a few months ago, when we had made a trip to that lively city.

Unfortunately, we did not have a chance to see the famous Winchester Bible as the library that contains it was closed, but we did marvel at two things: the choir stalls carved of oak which are the oldest in the country and were just exquisite in their details and the main stained glass windows which seem like a modernist design but are a result of the piecing together of the original stained glass windows that were blown out during the Civil War. The long nave of the Cathedral is equally imposing and since all the chairs were removed, the interior did not seem as much like a church as it did a museum! The best part about doing these class visits at this time of year is that the crowds are nowhere to be seen and you very often have the place to yourself for quiet contemplation.

Then, when we had said goodbye to the guide, I took directions from her and climbed the steep incline along the High Street to arrive at what are the only surviving remains of Winchester Castle built during Norman times--the Winchester Great Hall. The exterior is lovely (exposed black stone set within creamy mortar) as is the main portal and when we entered it, it was even lovelier. The mood was sombre and quiet which befit, I believe, its most famous exhibit--the Round Table of King Arthur. This is set high on the wall and must be quite immense in size for it looks huge though placed so far above us. It resembles a giant dart board and looks as if it were made yesterday. Recent studies have proved that it is not the actual Round Table though this one is at least 700 years old. A portrait of King Arthur adorns one part of it while the names of all the other knights are imprinted in a lovely Gothic script all around the circumference. The rest of the Hall is notable for the names of the knights who served the church through the centuries and for a magnificent bronze sculpture of Queen Victoria seated under a gilded canopy that was placed there to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee.

It wasn't long before I grabbed a few post cards as souvenirs and a sandwich, a cheese scone and a chocolate covered flapjack and with this lunch, I joined my students on a bench overlooking the statue of Alfred and awaited the return of our coach.

A half hour later, we were on our way to Portsmouth. See my next blog entry entitled "Pausing in Portsmouth' for an account of our amazing visit there.

Winchester was truly a lovely town that encompasses a great deal for the history buff and the architecture enthusiast to mull over. The fact that the sun was out on a spring morning made our excursion memorable and I left the place, astonished as its tiny size, but struck by how many elements of interest can be contained within so small a space.