TrustNews Mar 20
Memoir of St Michael's Parish
by Kathleen (“Kitty”) Bishop (1916—99) of 22 Culver Road, edited and annotated by The Editor
St Michael's Parish
Before the war, St Michael's parish was like a village. The Victorian rectory stood where St Michael's Gardens now are. Its kitchen garden was where the new houses are in St Michael's Road. Originally the garden next to me was also the Rectory kitchen garden. As this was too much garden for the Rector, it was let to Mr. Williams, the Headmaster of the College Choir School. In the 1930s it was put up for sale and Mr Tuckett, the College dentist, bought it. The Reverend Canon Quirk then decided that he would like to give it to the City Council as a public garden and so asked Mr Tuckett if he would sell it to him and promised to give Mr Tuckett enough land for a garage. In the early days the Council paid for a gardener to come every morning. [It is still a public garden, maintained by the City Council, with a small children's play area.]
In those days there were many ‘characters. : l can remember two ladies particularly: they were Miss Bramston and Miss LeRoy who lived at Witham Close [62 Kingsgate Street] at the bottom of St Michael's Passage. Miss Bramston‘s father was a Dean of Winchester and is commemorated in the Quire of the Cathedral. She was a formidable lady and a Town Councillor. I can see her now in a voluminous Harris tweed coat and skirt, riding her tricycle. She founded Winchester High School in North Walls. [The High School became St Swithun's School, now located on Alresford Road; the building on North Walls became the Reference Library and has now been converted to housing.] Miss LeRoy was a petite lady who painted in water colours and helped to found the High School. A few doors away lived Miss Sybil Blunt, a mannish lady but very artistic. She made the papier-maché nativity figures which are displayed each year on the High Altar in the Cathedral. The figures are white and the dark background gives a Wedgwood effect. Miss Blunt also designed many of the cushions on the stalls in the Quire. She was generous to the children of the parish and sometimes gave them Christmas parties with very nice presents.
When I was a child, Mrs Loom in Canon Street turned her front room into a shop where she sold “stick-jaw" and the most delicious cakes filled with apricot jam and covered with white or chocolate icing! There were three pubs in Canon Street: near the top was “The Perseverance" and almost opposite was a small general stores. "The White Horse" was halfway down and "The Wykeham" was at the bottom but not very salubrious. There was a shop, Miss Hazell’s, at no 67; it was kept by two maiden ladies and always reeked of paraffin. The third shop was at no.36 and was kept by a far from clean old man called Mr Culley (l was not allowed to buy anything there). At number 60 lived Ron Greener who used to mend punctures etc. on bicycles He always stood at the door wearing greasy overalls. Marjorie Elkins who lived at 20 Culver Road always called him “The Great Unwashed".
Culver Road
My father bought our house in 1925. At that time the land opposite my garage was our kitchen garden which my father rented from Alfred Bowker, who was also our solicitor. He owned the ten houses in Culverwell Gardens and our house. The Cottage Improvement Society bought them and now own only four. Each house and ours is built on exactly the same plan. In No. 10 the stairs are on the right and No.9 on the left and this plan extends along the row; but going from 10 to 1 they get slightly smaller. They are all smaller than mine. Numbers 11-12 were built in 1932. In Culver Road the College houses on the east side were built in 1987 and those on the west side in 1995. The latter were built in what was the garden of the corner house in St Michael's Road and the former on the kitchen garden of Moberley's in Kingsgate Street.
Before the war the majority of houses in Culverwell Gardens, Culver Road and Canon Street were let, but in Culver Road at least four houses were owned. At one time there were racing stables here, I think where the Mews are now, and the trainer lived in 20 or 18, so I imagine these are the oldest houses. In my time Wilfred Andrews‘ mineral water factory was behind the houses on the east side. At the time we had a crate of a dozen bottles every weekend. The ice-cream soda and ginger beer were my favourites, ln the early days the horse belonging to the delivery cart was stabled on what is now the garden of no.2 Culver Road. For several years the Dumper family lived in that house, which has been muchnimproved. Joe Dumper was a member of the Salvation Army and took part in The Winchester Gun Riots of 1908 when a mob assembled in the Broadway to prevent the removal of Winchester’s souvenir of the Crimean War. The gun had served as a sort of Speakers Corner. Eventually the gun disappeared in 1939 as scrap metal. (See Barbara Carpenter Turner's A History of Winchester.)
St Michael's Church
The sun-dial on the outside of the south wall is seventh century, one of the best in Hampshire and one of the oldest relics in Winchester. In the days of the Saxon Kings it served to mark the time for those who dwelt outside the city walls. The tower is the only remaining part of the early structure. The church was rebuilt and restored in 1583 and rebuilt in 1822. The chancel was added in the 1880's. The church was practically rebuilt and re-seated in 1882-90 [by William Butterfield who also designed the hospital on Romsey Road] at a cost of £2,640. In 1910 the church was again restored and redecorated at a cost of £300.
Mrs Bishop died in 1999 leaving a substantial legacy to the Trust