Winchester

Winchester (Roman) was Venta Belgarum, capital of the probably artificial civitas of the Belgae. Situated at the intersection of the north–south valley of the Itchen through the east–west chalklands, there is some evidence for late Iron Age activity and a post-conquest military site. By the late 1st cent. the town, unusually, had earthwork defences; augmented in the 2nd cent. and fronted in stone in the 3rd, they enclosed 143 acres. Limited excavation in the interior has located parts of a street-grid, the site of the forum, a temple, and a number of houses. Extensive 4th-cent. cemeteries suggest that Winchester was still a major centre of population, but they passed out of use at the beginning of the 5th cent., at the same time as the abandonment of the buildings in the interior. A few sherds of Anglo-Saxon pottery are associated with this final phase.

Alan Simon Esmonde Cleary

post-Roman

Winchester revived as a bishop's seat (662), but urban life did not return until a planned and fortified town (burh) was laid out within the Roman walls, probably by King Alfred. The city expanded dramatically between the 10th and 12th cents., ranking by c.1110, with Norwich, second in size after London, and sharing with Westminster the developing functions of a national capital. Besides the cathedral, it possessed royal and episcopal palaces, 57 parish churches, and one of the four great trading fairs of England. However, it declined from the 12th cent. as the close links with the monarchy slackened. Since the 15th cent. it has been only a modest provincial town, though Charles II commissioned a palace there in 1683, and may have toyed with creating an English Versailles. The long decline has left Winchester with a rich urban fabric, as well as ‘the richest architecturally of all English bishops' sees’. Important excavations in 1961–71, the first major urban archaeological programme in Britain, have revealed the entire plan of the pre-Conquest cathedral and much else.

David M. Palliser