The Winchester City Mill is one of the oldest watermills in the country a mill having existed on the site since at least Saxon times, possibly on the site of an earlier Roman mill. Extremely profitable to begin with it had fallen into disrepair by 1471 and then gifted to the city in 1554 by Mary I after her marriage to Philip of Spain at Winchester Cathedral.
Although these three museums are separate buildings I’m linking them together because you can get an Explorer ticket to visit all three for 20% off the ticket price, which is what I did. As each place takes roughly 30 or so minutes to explore visiting them in one day is a good way of spending a morning, though your ticket does give you 12 months entry to them all. I followed the order recommended on the website but you can of course visit them in any order you want. Therefore I began at The Great Hall, the only remaining part of Winchester Castle which was constructed in 1067 by William the Conqueror.
Holy Trinity Church was built in 1853-4 and I only really popped in because I needed somewhere to sit down away from the sun.
I’ve wanted to visit Winchester Cathedral for a while now due to the Jane Austen connection (she is buried here) but until I arrived I had no idea how large and full of interesting tombs, artefacts and museums it would prove to be.
Travelling back to Winchester from Chawton I did a quick search of things to do that would still be open late afternoon. The most obvious place seemed to be the English Heritage site Wolvesey Castle which could be accessed following a pleasant 10 minute walk along the River Itchen which is where I got off the bus.
Louise Jayne's Blog 