Visit - Trust Annual Report 1984
On a fine Saturday morning in September a group of Trust members travelled to Romsey, where they were welcomed by Dr. Akermann, the Chairman of their hosts, the Romsey and District Society.
The well-planned tour began with an exciting (if not hair-raising!) visit to the Abbey, where the rickety wooden ladders and knee-high parapets caused a few hearts to miss a beat in the tower and galleries. The group was then taken to see King John's House and the adjoining Tudor cottage. King John's House was probably built between 1230 and 1240, and is of the first floor hall type, with the living and sleeping quarters on the upper floor and the kitchens and stores in the ground floor. It was used as a guest house and has interesting historical connections, some of which are visible in the form of graffiti scratched into the mediaeval plaster. Here can be seen what appears to be the results of a rather drunken evening when some knights used their swords to draw amongst other things the arms of Plokenet, the badge of the Knights Templar, and a rough portrait of a man, thought to be possibly Edward I, who visited Romsey in 1306. A look at some houses that had been renovated by the Romsey Building Preservation Trust, an offshoot of the Romsey Society, rounded off an extremely interesting, but all too brief, visit to Romsey.