Snapshots of Winchester - TrustNews March 07
At the end of 2004, David Marklew, the former Winchester City Engineer deposited in the Hampshire Record Office a large collection of photographs taken by him between 1977 and 2000. This recently-catalogued collection forms a fascinating record for the student of the city’s built landscape and will certainly increase in significance as time passes and as the numerous changes during these decades recede from memory. Many of the images are unusual because they include features that photographers often choose to avoid! Far from the picturesque images of historic Winchester that abound in local postcard collections, this engineer’s view of Winchester’s townscape encompasses numerous features which may not be scenic but which have nevertheless preoccupied people over a long time: the city’s changing street furniture, its one-way systems, its road markings, car parks and traffic problems - all matters which have played a significant part in the physical development of the city and which are frequently mentioned in other Winchester High Street - Preparing for paving 1975 documents but have not until now been depicted so fully on film.
Of particular note are the photographs of relatively new features in Winchester: the Park and Ride car park at Bar End; congestion on the former Winchester bypass and the construction of the M3 motorway; the paving of part of the High Street; and the building of the Chesil multi-storey car park. Over 100 photographs of the Brooks site, as it developed from archaeological dig to shopping centre between 1988 and 1990, show all the knock-on problems of a large construction site in the middle of the town, including muddy roads and streams and colossal cranes and diggers in our midst.
Junction Middle Brook Street/Friarsgate,1979
The most recent photographs record the river in flood in November 2000, illustrating the problems at the lower end of town - a situation resonating through Winchester’s history, going back to the building of the cathedral on marshy ground and its underpinning in the early 20fh century, and echoed in a 19th century engineer’s warning of some devastating epidemic likely to arise from Winchester’s cumulative ‘cesspool evil’, leading to the move of the Royal Hampshire County Hospital from the city centre to Romsey Road.
Edited from “Friends Reunited” The Friends of Hampshire Museums and Archives Service newsletter