The Keats’ Walk, Winchester

It was such a surprisingly lovely and sunny week when I was away in Winchester that after I finished up at the National Trust Mill I decided it would be nice to have a walk along the River Itchen. I had a look on the Winchester Tourism site to see if there were any designated trails nearby. This was how I came across the Keat’s Trail/Walk. The poet John Keats had stayed in Winchester in 1819 and took this walk daily eventually inspiring him to write the poem “To Autumn”. The beginning of the trail starts around Winchester Cathedral and it just so happened that I had done that section already on my own visit to the Cathedral. Normally I write these post in the order that I did things, but on this occasion the first half of this post took place two days before the second half.

There are two ways of doing this walk as I see it, the way I’m about to present it, but also you can cut off the first part and just head down by the river. I say this because the walk begins at the Guildhall Building, where the visitor centre is located but if you walk up a little way from there and turn right you’ll come across the river path. However, we will start as the trail dictates. The present Guildhall building was bult in the 1870s as a space for courts, jails, a museum, a library, offices and meeting rooms etc.

You’re also close here to King Alfred’s statue. It was completed in 1901 as part of the celebrations of the millennium since he died and was designed by Hamo Thornycroft (his father designed the Boadicea and her daughters statue which you can find on Westminster Bridge in London). Alfred of course had made Winchester his capital. Keats when he visited is said to have stayed somewhere along this stretch of High Street, but no one can say where exactly.

Carry on down the High Street with the King Alfred Statue at your back and take the second left until you come to the Cathedral. Walk across the front and turn left so that you go through the stone arches and into the inner close (right takes you to the cathedral shop and cafe).

As you walk round the inner court keep an eye out for the grass area on the right where you can find this statue of Jane Austen. It was unveiled in October 2025 to mark the 250th anniversary of her birth. It was sculpted by Martin Jennings.

Carry straight on until you see this building, Cheyney Court. An Eliabethan timber-framed building it used to be the Bishop of Winchester’s courthouse. You can currently rent the property – for an eye watering £7,000 a month!

Go through the gate to the right and then the first left and follow that road around. There are plenty of shops here but if you head down that road you will come across Number 8 College Street where Jane Austen spent the last few weeks of her life before dying on 18 July 1817.

**Carry on down the street, past Winchester College and Wolvesey Castle and you’ll walk through the college car park and see a path towards the water meadow through a small gate. From here it’s basically a straight walk with the River Itchen on either side of you.

**This is the part where I diverged – I walked down the river path from the City Mill, walked past Wolvesey Castle through the car park of the college and through the gate to the water meadow.

As you walk you can see the playfields that belong to Winchester College which was founded in 1382 by Bishop William of Wykeham. Fees per term as of writing are £20,700 for boarders and £15,318 for day fees.

The walk is very pleasant with a well laid out path but it can get a bit muddy even on a warm sunny day and some parts of the river do cross onto the path so definitely one for sensible shoes.

After about half a mile you will need to cross Garnier Road – this is quite a busy road so you might have to do what I did which is move down the road a little to find a safe place to cross and then move back to the entrance for the rest of the walk.

And before you know it you are walking through this large field and come up to a wall of the Hospital of St Cross; founded in 1136 it’s the oldest charitable institution in the country. Now, I don’t know why but I had assumed the destination of Hospital St Cross was merely going to be something to photograph – it hadn’t occurred to me that you would be able to go inside but, for a small fee you can, so of course I did. That’ll be the next post. If you don’t want to pay it a visit (and there is a cafe on site you can visit without paying to go inside) you can retrace your steps back through the water meadows to the city centre.

The round trip is around 2 miles and a nice countryside break from the city.