History and Philosophy of the Trust - TrustNews July 17
History
Having come to Winchester in 1967 I can only summarise the Trust's origins but these are fully detailed in a booklet describing the first 21 years, written by Jeffrey Smith when chairman of the Trust. I have been unable to unearth a copy, but we aim to find and re-publish it (if anyone has a copy please let us know). This document recorded the names of the founders, a few local citizens who were deeply disturbed by the Council's plan to demolish all the small domestic buildings in the Brooks area extending into Colebrook Street. The group endeavoured to save at least the most historic buildings, including two historic houses and a courtyard inn, hastily raising the money to buy and restore them, but to no avail. As a result, in 1957, they formed the Winchester Preservation Trust to resist such measures, and invited others to become members and support their aims.
The fledgling Trust succeeded in preventing similar demolition in Canon Street except at the top end, also the redundant St Peter's church in Chesil Street by raising and borrowing funds for its conversion – hence the Trust’s logo, with a tree in the background to show the intention of presenting threatened trees as well as buildings. There have been numerous successes and failures since then, of which the following are examples, one chosen for each year to illustrate the range of our activities.
| 1957 | Contributed to the repair of the City wall in Canon Street. |
| 1958 | Submitted a scheme for the repair of St Maurice church tower. |
| 1959 | Raised funds in aid of the Cathedral Appeal. |
| 1960 | Initiated a scheme for the repair and conversion of St Peter Chesil and its conversion to a theatre in conjunction with the Winchester Amateur Dramatic Society. |
| 1961 | Paid for the repair of the roofs of 78 and 79 Kingsgate Street. |
| 1962 | Work commenced on St Peter Chesil. |
| 1963 | Donated to the Winchester Excavations appeal. |
| 1964 | Grant aided a photographic record of the High Street. |
| 1965 | Organised a concert in aid of St Peter Chesil. |
| 1966 | Commented on the draft Town Centre Map. |
| 1967 | Contributed to the repair of Hyde Abbey Gateway. |
| 1968 | Recommended that St Cross should be designated a Conservation Area. |
| 1969 | Assisted WCC in revising the list of buildings of historic interest. |
| 1970 | Repaired the wall of Hyde Abbey stream. |
| 1971 | Raised objections at the first M3 Public lnquiry, subsequently founding and chairing the M3 Joint Action Group. |
| 1972 | Hosted a visit from the Shaftesbury Society (and many other societies since then). |
| 1973 | ‘Plant a Tree Year’ provided a number of tree planting schemes for WCC* to implement as the Council had no plans for the year. |
| 1974 | Campaigned against the official dual carriageway inner ring road scheme, eventually achieving its abandonment by the Authorities. |
| 1975 | Issued a detailed study of St John’s Street, threatened by the road scheme. |
| 1976 | Published a booklet on the High Street. |
| 1977 | Commented on the Town Centre Plan. |
| 1978 | Achieved spot-listing of 32 Upper Brook Street to prevent its demolition. |
| 1979 | Restored the porticos of the listed terrace in Southgate Street facing Serle’s House. |
| 1980 | At a Public Inquiry successfully opposed a new dual carriageway link road to replace Easton Lane. |
| 1981 | Opposed the demolition of many houses in St John’s Street, and with joint funding from the HBPT* restored much of the east side. |
| 1982 | Organised the repair of the wall and Jacobean monuments in Hyde Close. |
| 1983 | Acquired the lease of 32 Upper Brook Street and converted it into the Heritage Centre. |
| 1984 | Launched the Trust’s regular awards scheme with Sir Hugh Casson as chairman of the first judging panel. |
| 1985 | Published detailed comments on the Winchester District Local Plan. |
| 1986 | Represented the Joint Action Group at the third M3 Public Inquiry, leading to its re-routing away from the water meadows. |
| 1987 | Unsuccessfully opposed the design of all 3 schemes for the Brooks Centre, succeeding only in obtaining the addition of the trees in Friarsgate. |
| 1988 | Successfully campaigned against the removal of gravestones in West Hill Cemetery. |
| 1989 | Instituted the Chipplndale Venture (commemorating his educational role with the Trust) to provide school children with the experience of designing a project and negotiating planning approval. The venture ran for 7 years. |
| 1990 | Organised the restoration of the parapet of 4 Eastgate Street, and later restored the railings for the whole terrace crescent. |
| 1991 | After a long campaign, welcomed the Authorities’ decision to commission a Park & Ride Study, contributing £2500 towards the cost. |
| 1992 | Opposed the Crown Commissioners’ proposals for the redevelopment of Peninsula Barracks. |
| 1993 | Supported WCC in opposing a Cathedral scheme to turn the garden of a Close house into a car park. |
| 1994 | With HGT* donated £5,000 to assist SAVE* and Huw Thomas in fighting for conversion rather than demolition of the Barracks buildings. |
| 1995 | Designed a scheme to extend the Heritage Centre to house Roger Brown's model of Victorian Winchester and unsuccessfully applied for Heritage Lottery funding. |
| 1996 | Produced the first of a series of illustrated neighbourhood studies to help safeguard a number of character areas, starting with Christchurch Road. |
| 1997 | Campaigned for and succeeded in initiating the joint WCC, HCC, HGT, HWT* and the Trust commissioned Study and Report on ‘Winchester and its Setting Study’ the first of its kind nationally. |
| 1998 | Group visit to Poundbury and Blandford Forum and continued the annual Summer Walks. |
| 1999 | Participated in the public workshops on the Broadway/Friarsgate redevelopment proposals (Silver Hill). |
| 2000 | Contributed £2,500 to the WCC Conservation Area Project published in 2003. |
| 2001 | Publication of the Trust’s ‘Strategic Vision for the Future of Winchester’. |
| 2002 | Commented on the emerging brief for Silver Hill and engaged the developer’s project director to speak at the Trust’s AGM. |
| 2003 | Published ‘Applying PPG3* to Winchester’ to make local sense of the government’s direction to increase development density, leading to the introduction of WCC’s Neighbourhood Studies policy. |
| 2004 | Contributed further funds to the Winchester Excavations Committee. |
| 2005 | Hosted a lively public debate on design in an historic city, chaired by the Trusts’ President, Christopher Clark QC. |
| 2006 | Presented the Trust’s argument for ‘Heritage Town Status’ and vision/design-led planning policy to an invited audience of the Authorities and other City organisations (now taken up by the Canterbury Society and Civic Voice). |
| 2007 | Commented in detail on the WCC draft Vision for Winchester, leading to important changes. |
| 2008 | The Landscape Group embarked on revising and updating its Winchester tree survey for presentation to WCC. |
| 2009 | Publication of the book ‘Winchester Heart of a City’ compiled and edited from Andrew Rutter’s manuscript, 700 copies sold by the end of the year; it has since sold out and the original price has doubled. |
| 2010 | The Planning Policy Group continued engagement on Barton Farm with the developers and architects, including representation at the Public Inquiry. |
| 2011 | In conjunction with HGT produced the illustrated ‘Winchester and its Setting’ document to emphasise the importance of the landscape setting, with special reference to the importance of Bushfield. |
| 2012 | Formed a joint working party with WinACC* to monitor the development of the approved scheme for Barton Farm, voicing opposition to the Andover Road diversion. |
| 2013 | Engaged with WCC’s proposals for regeneration of the Station Approach area, endeavouring to persuade the Council to run a RlBA* design competition. |
| 2014 | Visited Farnborough Air Museum, Farnborough Abbey, and Longford Castle. |
| 2015 | Continued support for Civic Voice (the successor to the Civic Trust), the national organisation of civic societies that takes our joint concerns to government. |
| 2016 | Opened the Heritage Centre for ‘Heritage Open Days’ with an exhibition of two architects’ fascinating but contrasting views of the City. |
| 2017 | Rejoiced that after the first Station Approach" competition’s failure, WCC eventually took our advice and put the competition in the hands of the RIBA but we worry that this policy has not continued with the new Leisure Centre. |
*WCC Winchester City Council; HBPT Hampshire Buildings Preservation Trust; HGT Hampshire Gardens Trust; SAVE Save Britain ’s Heritage; HCC Hampshire County Council; HWT Hampshire and I0W Wildlife Trust; PPG3 Planning Policy Guideline no.3; WinACC Winchester Action on Climate Change; RIBA Royal Institute of British Architects.
Philosophy
The Trust’s primary aim can be summarised as the preservation of the distinctive and evolving character of Winchester. We have never believed that the City’s character should be arbitrarily frozen at any particular date change and the history of change has always been part of Winchester’s character. But, just as the City continues to evolve, so do the threats to its character change. In the first few years of the Trust it was a relatively simple matter of resisting the unnecessary demolition of historic buildings. But as time went by it became increasingly a matter of anticipating development threats to the City's character, including the effects of highway and traffic proposals, so the Trust increasingly engaged with the Local Authorities and endeavoured to influence emerging official policies. It also became clear that even modest new buildings and alterations cumulatively affect the character of our streets, so that the Trust's commentary on important planning applications expanded with the formation of Panels that look at all applications within the City boundary. In addition, to influence designers and their clients, the design awards programme was initiated, and in 2001 we changed our name to the ‘City of Winchester Trust’ because we found that many thought we were only concerned with building preservation. We would have liked to become ‘The Winchester Conservation Trust’ because conservation means the expert and appropriate management of change, but some obscure organisation in Yorkshire had already bagged that name!
.The Trust’s core philosophies, as defined above by the words in bold, guide the Trustees in all their decisions and the formation of their policies. Within these terms, however, there is room for interpretation, and the Trust Council frequently debates such matters, reaching decisions by consensus. These things remain, as they did from the start, the sole responsibility of the Trustees, but views expressed by members are always considered, and for this reason we continue to report our activities on the website and in regular issues of TrustNews and the Annual Report.