Heritage Centre - TrustNews Summer 1995
You will have read in the Trust Chairman's Message of the financial crisis facing the Centre. Confident that a solution will be found after opening every Saturday during the Winter we opened for the season in April with 'Winchester through the lens of Bob Sollars'. We are privileged that Bob Sollars, a professional photographer, has generously donated to the Trust a magnificent archive of Winchester from the 1950's onwards. We are also grateful to John Brimfield who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that the Sollars’ archive was preserved for future generations. The Mayor (CI1r Ray Pearce) opened the Sollars’ exhibition in the presence of many who had been photographed by Bob Sollars including our two vice presidents Lord Coggan and David Cowan. The Sollars' archive, or rather some of it, has been collated by John Brimfield and his book ‘Winchester’ (Chalfords) was launched at the Centre by our new mayor (Cllr Mrs Pat Norris) in early June with Bob Sollars present.
Work at improving the Centre carried on during the winter months. Remodelling the rooms telling the story of Winchester in the late 20th century caused us some headaches as we are all too close to interpret recent changes - so we are still fine tuning the displays.
What next? - well, Andy Anderson has loaned us his splendid model of our Cathedral made out of 65,000 matchsticks over 13 years. The Royal Observer Corps are hoping to purchase their own listed wartime command post and will have an exhibition of their activities in the Centre in November.
We need your support to ensure the future of the Heritage Centre - who knows you may have been photographed years ago by Bob Sollars and feature in our current exhibition!