a day trip to winchester

our first trip out of london was two hours down south east to historic winchester.

king alfred the great ruled wessex back in the 870's. at that time vikings rules half the country. it was alfred that beat them up, won back some land and formed what is now "england" making winchester his capital. (this statue though is not very old, only a 100 years)

this is the view east down high st. this street has been the route across the nearby itchen river for the last 2500 years.

originally (in about the year 300) the romans built a wall around their city. here's me next to the best remaining part of the city walls. the walls have been rebuilt many times over the last 1700 years or so so these are probably only 400-500 years old.

here is ren infront of the house that jane austin died in. a weird thing over the uk is that in historical places they have these little plaques (in this case over the door) describing the historic place. there is another "plaque" (though too small to see the detail) in the window to the right of the door written by the owner telling the tourists that this house is private and not open for viewing to the public!

what's left of winchester castle

it was at the west side of the city walls that william the conqueror started work on winchester castle in 1066. you can see one of the five city gates on the right, this one was called, with much imagination, "the west gate".

1
this is the view up high st towards the west gate, one of the few remaining parts of castle structure. this would have been the view from inside the city.

2
this is west gate from the other side. this is what you would have seen if you were on the outside. you can go inside and have a look around at their little museum. in the gateway you can see the slit where the bars would have been lowered.

3
the "great hall" is the only other part remaining of the castle (above ground). it was built in the 13th century and is pretty intense inside.

this is a view from inside the great hall at the wall and some windows. if you look in the middle carefully you can see where the original door was before it was moved to the center of the hall in the above picture.

this is the best part of winchester! king arthurs round table! it was put together in about 1270, has been hanging on these walls since about 1460 and was most recently painted by henry the eighth in 1522 for a visit by charles the fifth. the painting of legendary authur looks a lot like young henry himself (hows that for an ego!)

winchester catherdral

winchester catherdral is pretty huge, has lots of stain glass windows and is over 900 years old.

again winchester castle, this time from the side.

the inside itself is gigantic.

these are some of the carvings inside the catherdral and are quite incredible. you can see the chandelier to get some idea of the huge scale of this whole thing.

this is the crypt under the cathedral. the temperture drop is quite drastic so it's a bit spooky. i'm not sure what this statue thing has got to do with anything. a bit out of place i think....

others things to looks at!
next some more things in london
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