Today, we move to our last destination,
Winchester. The days are counting down and this next city is our last before we
board a great silver bird to return to Seattle.
It is another fine Autumn day as we prepare for our
departure. We head downstairs for another lovely English breakfast. The
Cathedral Hotel is a fine place to stay when visiting Winchester! We pack up
and head downstairs to check out.
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| The Cathedral Hotel (left) |
We decide that Amy will stay here with the
bags while I fetch the car and return to the hotel to load up. As I redeem the
car and exit the CarPark, I discover that it is not as simple as I thought it
should be. The exit ramp from the CarPark empties onto a highway that takes me away
from the downtown. Before I know it, I am several miles south of the city and
heading the west!
It takes me about 10 minutes to turn around and head
back into town. Amy has become worried and is texting me, wondering where I
am. There are moments of concern, but I get it straightened out and finally
make it back to the Hotel.
We hit the road for the 30 miles drive to Winchester.
There are no further complications until we enter the town. The streets get
more and more narrow as we approach our destination. We reach an archway, which
I realize is the King’s Gate. We go through it and there are lots of people
walking around. I thought we were headed to our BnB, so we consult MapMe. Oops, we set the app to take us to the Winchester
Cathedral – we have just gone through a gate that has a sign: only vehicles with
Cathedral business are allowed through this gate!
We quietly, but quickly, backtrack out from the
locale of the Cathedral. Back north of the Cathedral, we find the correct road
to our locale for tonight, a BnB on St. James Villas. We check in with Alex,
our host. He shares some suggestions for lunch and dinner, and we head out to explore the
town and tour the Cathedral. Our first stop is The Wyckham Arms for a bite to eat.
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| The Wykeham Arms |
This pub has been selected as the best pub in Britain
for 2018. It has a nice backyard area, and after ordering sandwiches and
drinks, we head out to the back. Amy has ordered the Brie and Cranberry
sandwich and I have ordered the smoked Chicken, Bacon and Avocado. The
afternoon is warm and sunny. Sadly, there are several guests back here that are
smoking, but we reposition ourselves to avoid most of the smoke. The food arrives and we can
understand why this pub earned the honors for 2018. We enjoy lunch, then head
to the Cathedral.
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| Winchester Cathedral |
Winchester Cathedral is not as grand an edifice as the
Cathedral in Salisbury. But it has a deeper history. Winchester is the ancient
capital of the Kingdom of Wessex, one of the Seven Kingdoms in Medieval times.
The Cathedral was important at this time due to it being the site where some
Kings had their coronations.
We take the guided tour, beginning with the spacious …
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| ... interior of the Nave. |
Among many stories about the Cathedral, we hear one from the recent
past. The siting of the building was unfortunate, as the southeast corner of the
building is atop a water-soaked region. Over the centuries, the building has
been sinking. In the early 1900’s, an attempt to stabilize the ground beneath
the Cathedral, and arrest the sinking, was made. A diver was hired, William Walker, retired from the Royal
Navy. He worked diligently for 5 years to place cement under the flooring. Working submerged in water and with no light, the
effort was successful and there is a lovely appreciation in this corner of the Nave to Walker and his team, including a statue with Walker in a replica of the diving suit he used.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the tour, we exit and walk
to High Street, the center of the pedestrian mall. We find The Ivy, one of the suggestions for dinner. We continue to saunter
east and encounter …
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| ... a Statue of King Aelfred. |
The King was crowned in this city in 851 CE. A little further east is …
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| ... the Chesil Rectory. |
This is our other dining possibility.
The building has a very long history. Completed around 1450 CE, this is the oldest commercial building in use in Winchester, In 1554, Queen Mary’s lavish wedding to
King Philip of Spain almost bankrupted the city of Winchester. In gratitude, and to help allay the financial burden, the Queen gifted this building to the city. It looks like a very interesting place to eat, so we book it for dinner. We return to St. James
Villas to rest up before dinner.
Having recovered from our forays into the Cathedral
and the City, we head to dinner and are delighted to step into the very low-ceilinged
first floor dining room. It is amusing to watch taller diners walk around stooped-over to avoid bumping their heads. After Cocktails (French 75’s), we share the Hoxton
Bakery Breads. For her main, Amy has the Goosnargh Chicken, essentially a deconstructed
Hot Pot, and I have the Cobley Wood Farm Lamb. A delicious and authentically Gournet English last dinner for us in the UK.
Sated, we return to the BnB. Another really good day!
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