Replacements - Trust Annual Report 1969
For several years the Corporation has been following a policy of insisting that a number of buildings should be reinstated as they were, instead of being replaced by a new building. The most recent example is the site formerly occupied by Messrs. Dowlings, and although the shop is not yet let, we can see that the reconstruction of the upper storeys has been completely successful and has maintained the character of this part of the High Street. A little further to the west there is the reconstruction of the upper part of the old Chapel which was formerly Giffords and now forms part of Woolworths.
This is less satisfactory because the shop front itself has gone, but nevertheless this reconstruction is a valuable break in what would otherwise have been an extremely dull first floor extending over a long stretch facing the pentice.
Opposite, at the Butter Cross, in the very heart of Winchester, the reconstruction of No. 41 is one of the most important restorations of recent years, which must be coupled with the National Provincial Bank opposite.
Just to imagine what Winchester would be like without these buildings reminds us how important Preservation is.
Taken with the Public Library, Chesil Rectory, Bargees Cottage and St. Swithuns Arch, it is to be hoped that this successful policy will continue, remembering that many buildings, which would not necessarily be considered worth saving for their own sake, are nevertheless right in their setting and to save them, will be to save the personality of the City as a whole.
Groups of buildings, as the Civic Trust has so often pointed out, are more important than the individuals in these cases.