Listed Building and monuments in Winchester
Buildings or monuments are listed because they are of special architectural or historic interest. Anyone can nominate a building or monument in England for listing or de-listing by application to Historic England, who review the request. If they decide it is worthy of listing they present it to Government for approval (the Department of Culture, Media and Sport). Once it is listed English Heritage maintain a register of buildings which is now over 375,000. This is called The National Heritage List for England and also includes information on other types of designation such as scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens, protected wreck sites and registered battlefields.
Once a building has been listed it can not be demolished, extended or altered without special permission from the local planning authority (in the case of Winchester this is the Winchester City Council). The Council may consult English Heritage, if significant alterations to the building are proposed. Owners of listed buildings are, in some circumstances, compelled to repair and maintain them and can face criminal prosecution if they fail to do so or if they perform unauthorised alterations.
With Winchester’s rich history it has many listed buildings, close to 500. These cover a number of major areas in the City:-
1. Winchester Cathedral, mainly within The Close.
2. Winchester College, originally called St Mary’s College based in College Street.
3. Peninsular Barracks, off Romsey Road.
4. The Historic core of the City eg High Street, Jewry Street, Parchment Street etc.
5. Historic suburb of St Cross.
A current list of Winchester buildings and monuments has been kindly provided by National Heritage in February 2012. The Listed Buildings of Winchester contains the list of buildings and monuments. Each entry consists of three fields:-
1. The address of the building within the Winchester City boundary.
2. The Asset Number generated by English Heritage to reference the building. This has a link to the record for the building held by English Heritage. This record contains a description of the building and a map showing its exact location.
3. A link to an image of the building if it exists on the English Heritage site Images of England.
The entries in the list are in alphabetic order of the street name.
The list should be used with care. If a building is not on this list it can not be assumed that it is not listed since the list is a snapshot of listed buildings in Winchester at February 2012. To confirm that a building or monument is not listed at any moment in time enquiries should be made to Winchester City Council or by searching English Heritage’s National Heritage List for England, the only official and up-to-date list of designated assets in England.