West Hill Cemetry - TrustNews Spring 1988
The Landscape Committee of the Trust is very pleased to report that there will be no further clearances of gravestones from West Hill Cemetery in 1988. The gravestone clearance programme, which has been proceeding inexorably since 1957, has now been temporarily halted. The City's Landscape Architect, Julian Davies, has been instructed to prepare a full report which will eventually incorporate the cemetery into a long term landscape strategy for the City.
The Trust is delighted to find that many of its observations about the cemetery and its importance as an open, hillside space within the City, have been heeded. The City Council is to reconsider its previous policy of tidying-up and slope-levelling in favour of a more creative and professionally-based strategy.
Of course, the Trust accepts that some gravestones will disappear. In this connexion we wish to make an appeal to any members who have the time, however restricted it might be, to undertake a limited survey of those gravestones which they feel would be worth preserving. We know that the City of Winchester will be most receptive and very grateful for any information or opinions gathered from Trust members.
The Landscape Committee is extremely encouraged by this new awareness of the City Council and by the desire of the Council to see this unique place within the City as a positive landscape feature. This is a particularly precious spot within the heart of Winchester yet giving exceptional views outwards towards the magnificent chalk downland landscape of the Itchen Valley. We are therefore strongly behind the strategy now being adopted, even this late in the day, by the City Council.