A Personal View on Preservation - TrustNews February 1989
I am, like others who have been fortunate enough to live in beautiful places, both town and country, conservationist by inclination. But I also know, not least from my work, that we must always be ready to adapt and change. So what should we try to conserve and when does the force of change become dominant? I think I can only say that one should not be dogmatic. There is no particular merit in preserving old buildings if they have little distinction or function to serve. It must be our hope also to leave to subsequent generations new buildings which they will be proud to preserve as examples of good 20th century architecture. Nor should we feel that every blade of grass needs to be protected against every brick or foot of tarmac. Man has always created his own landscapes and motorways must be accepted even in chalk downland if their construction helps to preserve something even more important -human life.
What in my opinion needs most of all to be cherished is the sensitivity to judge what is fitting in the way we modify our environment. This is partly a matter of education, partly one of intuitive feeling; but above all it depends on a preparedness to see all sides of a development issue and to look for the balance between them.
The cover of the August Newsletter nicely illustrates the point. It was graced with Keith Leaman's elegant drawing of the Kingsgate Arch. Everyone must be aware of the topical significance of that choice of subject and I shall be returning to it in a moment.
But the picture also shows, on the right, the winter skeleton of the magnificent magnolia tree which presides over Stephan Hopkinson's cunningly designed garden in 2 St Swithun's Street; and on the left the harder outlines of the frontages of 78 and 79 Kingsgate Street.
There you have three areas in which the greatest sensitivity needs to be observed by the planner in balancing the demands of conservation and practical convenience. First, in making sure that trees and gardens and 'green' spaces continue to contribute to the beauty of Winchester as they have always done in the past. The Council is rightly protective of them and that is a heritage we must try not to diminish. Secondly, in reconciling old and new styles of architecture. Here I think we are learning. Much of the new building in central Winchester is a good deal more sympathetic than what was put up in the 1960's, and I am pleased that the College is able to set a good example, through the Culver Road development for instance.
But the greatest and most pressing problem concerns Winchester and its traffic. About the closing of the Kingsgate Arch I have little compunction. It has already suffered quite enough damage and I do not see that its removal from the traffic circuit will cause great difficulties. But the barring of College Street is another matter and needs more extended consideration.
Winchester is but one of many mediaeval cities in this country which has had to come to terms with an increasing volume of motor vehicles for which its narrow streets are entirely unsuited. The original solution, arrived at over fifty years ago, was to keep the through traffic out by building a bypass. Environmental pressure groups - which are by no means an invention of the present generation - tried to minimize the defacing of the chalk down and the result was a compromise: the line of the bypass was to stay east of the city and west of St Catherine's Hill, but the carriageway was to be made less wide than originally planned.
In the longer term that decision was to contribute largely to the number of terrible accidents on the tight bends of the A33; but no one at the time could have foreseen the increase in the traffic it would have to carry, and for 25 years or so, it served its purpose well enough. As late as 1960 all 550 boys of Winchester College could happily troop across the bypass at 8 a.m. on their way to the ceremony of 'Morning Hills' without any serious worries.
Whether there was ever a more ambitious plan to put a ring road round the whole town - Chilbolton Avenue and Bereweeke Road being the vestigial remains - I do not know. The fact is that there never has been adequate provision for those trying to get from one side of the city to the other except north/south on the line of the present bypass. Considering that there are roads coming into the city from at least six other points of the compass, we should not be surprised at the chaos and congestion that result. The more crowded and dangerous the bypass becomes, the more drivers seek alternative routes through the city. There they have to compete with the vastly increased amount of local traffic, and so from time to time the whole place comes to a standstill.
It is reasonable and proper to say, 'We can't go on like this' especially as things are only likely to get worse the longer they are left. But since so many of the principles involved are in direct conflict, how on earth can we achieve a satisfactory balance?
I have no statistics at my elbow, nor access to previous studies as Ivo write this, so I must confine myself largely to generalities. But my feeling is that little will be achieved by a piecemeal approach -closing a street here, creating a one-way flow there. The plain fact is that there are far too many cars driving through the city of Winchester, and the place suffers grievously as a result. At the same time we have to recognize that we are a motorized generation and little but ill-will (and consequent frustration, bad driving and accidents) is caused by just making things harder for the motorist. What is therefore needed is a general plan, a comprehensive strategy which will, so far as possible, meet the complementary requirements of keeping the through traffic out of the city centre while providing proper ways round for it.
If decisions are taken on a pragmatic one-off basis you get the sort of controversy and dissatisfaction which the closure of College Street has aroused. As an original supporter of the proposal, I must state my interests. I lived for some years in 78 Kingsgate Street, at the junction of Kingsgate Street and College Street, and the first floor sitting room gave a Dress Circle view of large international coaches and articulated lorries trying to negotiate the right angled bend between narrow streets. They could not but block the road, drive the pedestrians off the pavements, scrape and chip the brickwork of ancient buildings.
They should never have been allowed in that area, but so long as it was notionally part of a through route, nothing would keep them out - nor the commuting motorist taking a short cut to avoid the evils of Southgate Street and St. George's Street. Kingsgate Street had become a dangerous place for the families who lived in it and for the hundreds of boys who frequent it for two thirds of the year. I know that the number of actual recorded accidents to pedestrians was very small, but the near misses were almost a daily occurrence. Teenage boys are fortunately pretty nimble.
So it was clear to me that the school - its people and its buildings - would benefit significantly from College Street becoming a cul-de-sac and on those grounds I supported the Council's plan. (Alternative proposals to prevent, somehow, all parking in Kingsgate Street or make it one way, were wholly wide of the mark: the traffic would be faster and even more dangerous).
At the same time I will readily admit that it is a great inconvenience to me and all the others who live in this part of Winchester to have no access by road to Wharf Hill; and so it is for all those who live in Bar End, Highcliffe or out on the Alresford Road, and need to get south of the Cathedral. If this were a stark choice between motoring convenience and the safety of the residents and their houses, I would support the latter. But I would do so much more readily if I felt that steps were being taken to accommodate both. That really cannot be done just by diverting the traffic through the already overloaded City Centre; and if that is what is to happen, then the public opposition to the closure of College Street may reach such a pitch that the order has to be countermanded in a year or so. So I come back to my general point that only by coordinated planning can the proper concerns of the motorist and the conservationist be met. The closure of College Street achieves a highly desirable end in terms of preserving a human and architectural environment. But the motorist needs to be compensated for his loss too, and that can only be done by providing an alternative route. At the 1976 Motorway enquiry, the College advocated the opening up of the road linking Bar End with Garnier Road. We now do so again.