A letter from a concerned Canon Street resident - TrustNews Summer 1999
Canon Street in 1870s
from Winchester: a pictorial History John Crook 1993
Dear Mr Merton
Canon Street
I understand the Council plan to pedestrianise Canon Street 'and install all manner of traffic calming devices - bumps, kinks, and doubtless even more bollards!
I have not personally seen the plans, and cannot therefore be specific. But a few months ago, at a special meeting of council officials (to which Canon Street residents were invited), I put forward a suggestion that 'Pedestrians might be given Priority' in Canon Street in much the same way as in many European cities, and indeed in Winchester itself down by Marks and Spencers - and that this alone would act as an efficient means of 'calming the traffic'. The Council's seemingly awful plans may be a dreadful distortion of the original suggestion: and I believe it is something that the Preservation Trust should look into.
My concept - and I believe one that would be shared by the great majority of people in Canon Street - is to keep Canon Street looking as SIMPLE as possible as it might have looked in the pre-car era. It is one of Winchester's treasures, and if streets could be listed as buildings are it would certainly have a Grade 2 starred listing, if not a Grade 1.
Quite aside from the incredible waste of public money involved, it is a horrendous thought that Canon Street should be turned into another Upper Brook Street, with seven or eight styles and colours of brick and stone, and zigs and zags and all the God-knows-what of Tinsel-Town. It MUST be monitored, and fought.
Yours sincerely, Robert Dick-Read.