A summer’s afternoon walk in Winchester!
New volunteer befriender, Lorraine Estelle, treated the 5s to 13s children and their befrienders to a thoroughly interesting, guided walk around some of the local historical sites in Winchester.
Our walk began in the Abbey Gardens where Lorraine explained that a former rich owner of the Mayor of Winchester’s residence decided he didn’t like the view of a silk factor at the bottom of his garden so built a grand façade with four tall columns to cover it!
We then took in the great statue of King Alfred and learnt that it was put in place to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of his death. Lorraine explained that the people installing the statue placed lots of sugar on top of the stone plinth to help them to manoeuvre the very heavy bronze statue into place. This strategy worked brilliantly to get King Alfred in the right position looking up the High Street except that it attracted lots of bees and wasps and the stature was covered in them for a while!
Next, we travelled back in time to see the ruins of the original wall that the Romans built around the city and then along the river to see the Bishops Palace. At Wolvesey Castle the children and adults enjoyed imagining having a banquet in the great dining hall whilst having a small snack and a drink. More of snackquet than a banquet for us!
Onto Winchester College where Lorraine explained that the school had originally been built to provide a home and a school for 70 orphaned boys. She also told us that in the olden days the drinking water was not very clean so the children were given weak beer to drink for their breakfast and they also had their own brewery on site!
The children and adults had a great time, and we all learnt a lot more about the local landmarks that we all take for granted. One volunteer said, “It’s great to get some background knowledge about the town where we live, I want to go on more guided walks now to find out more!” Hopefully Lorraine will take on us on another guided walk again soon!