Neighbourhood Studies
No. 1 - Fulflood
7 Trees
St Paul's Hill
Trees help to break up the solid building mass of urban areas. Large built-up areas are a feature of 19th & 20th century England. Winchester is more favoured with trees than many English towns. Fulflood has a backcloth of fine Victorian plantings of Scots Pine around Chilbolton Avenue and Bereweeke Road. These provide a dark edge and skyline to parts of the area and the eastern side of the City; dark-coloured buildings are largely hidden by this horizon. It cannot be emphasised too strongly how important these trees are to the City as a whole. Those standing on private land need to be protected by TPOs or by inclusion in the conservation area, and a system of careful management is needed so that replacement of defective specimens can be phased to maintain the wooded line of the horizon.
Some of the streets have lime trees planted in the pavement, notably Cheriton Road. Other streets have front gardens deep enough to contain trees, for example Fordington Road. However, Cranworth and Brassey Roads have no space for trees in either the pavement or the front gardens and therefore the trees at Peter Symonds College, visible at the northern ends of both streets, are particularly important. Hatherley Road also benefits from the boundary trees in the Peter Symonds college grounds. The Westgate School has been well landscaped with new planting of trees around the buildings, older planting near the road and some tree belts in the playing-field area. It is noted that none of the trees in Peter Symonds College and Westgate School and, apart from Bereweeke House, the south side of Bereweeke Road have TPOs. The trees on these sites are some of the most important in the area and certainly have skyline significance for the City as a whole. Therefore the protection of these trees is of paramount importance, and action should be taken to rectify this situation as soon as possible. Trees discussed here and elsewhere in this text may prove to be of poor quality. Thus, the importance of an overall tree strategy, and plans for appropriate timing for replacements should be considered.
Trees on County Council land, notably Westgate School, are the subject of a "gentleman's agreement" with the City and are therefore partially protected. This is not the case with Peter Symonds College, which is now privately owned.