Heritage Centre - TrustNews Spring 1995
Apart from the normal winter opening on Saturdays, which brought in casual visitors from all over the world, we treated ourselves to a short break between the closing of the Transport exhibition in November until Christmas. Our willing labour force of Tony Hunter and Jim Mitchell is now well on with internal maintenance work in the Heritage Centre, ready for the full opening of the Centre on 1 April 1995.
Work on preparing the main 1995 exhibition is also under way. This is an exciting exhibition of the photographic collection of the former professional photographer, Bob Sollars, who had his business in City Road. The exhibition will cover the period from the 1950's to the 1980's. How many people remember St Peter's School, the 1977 Jubilee celebrations with Mayor Ball presiding over the tea party in The Pentice, or the old parade of shops on the north side of City Road opposite Bob Sollar's studio, or the opening of the Bar End flyover? Such is the scope of this remarkable collection, which also illustrates some of the issues that the Winchester Preservation Trust has championed over the years, some of which are displayed in the permanent exhibition upstairs in the 20th Century Room of the Heritage Centre. This will be a most interesting and instructive exhibition, so do come to see it - opening date 1 April.
At the insistence of our insurance company, we have installed an alarm system in the Heritage Centre. It is sad that insurance companies now regard Winchester as a "black-spot" for burglaries.
The December book sale unfortunately did not do as well as we had hoped, but we shall be running a further sale in St Maurice Covert on 19 April 1995, so please can we have some more unwanted books that we can sell in aid of Heritage Centre funds.
Alan Cooke has once again taken a set of unusual views of Winchester, which will form the basis of a second Hampshire Chronicle competition for those that think they know every nook and cranny in the City. The usual Half-term Quizzes and a new Winchester Literary Quiz are also in our sights. Finally, we are very grateful to our new Publicity Officer, Mike Lee, who has succeeded in getting us good press coverage during the winter closed season. We are looking forward to an active year, with an excellent main exhibition and several minor practical improvements to the Heritage Centre.