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The area occupied by the modern city has been occupied since early times and the remains if Iron Age hill forts can be found around Winchester.
During the Roman occupation the important settlement was built on the site in about AD 70 and named "Venta Belgarum", "capital of the Belgares", the Celtic tribe which inhabited the area at the time of the conquest. Roman Winchester was typical of such settlements, it streets laid out to a grid around a central forum serving as a market place, surrounded by shops and the town's public buildings. While the poor lived in wood-framed houses with mud infill and mud floors, the houses of the rich had glazed windows, mosaic floors and wall murals. The obligatory public baths served not only personal hygeine, but also as meeting places.
Winchester was given the status of a "civitas", a regional capital from which the area was administered.
The original town was timber-built and protected by a ditch and earthen rampart, probably surmounted by a wooden palisade. By the early third century, some of the houses were built of stone or masonry and the hastily erected defences of the town had been replaced by stone walls which enclosed an area of 144 acres (although there would have been suburbs outside the defensive walls), making it the fifth largest Roman town in the British province.
In common with other Roman towns in Britain, Winchester declined in the fourth century as the empire contracted to better protect Rome against the rising threat from the barbarians.
After the departure of the last Roman soldiers at the beginning of the fifth century, the Roman system of centralised administration ceased and the towns which they built were gradually abandoned. Like other Roman towns, Venta Belgarum seems to have been abandoned.
After the arrival of the Saxons in the sixth century, they may have settled in small numbers within the protection afforded by the
Roman walls of the former city in wooden huts and farmed the land outside.
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The modern name Winchester has its origins in the dark ages; the Roman Venta Belgarum became known to the Saxons as "Venta Caester", "caester" being the name the Saxons gave to any collection of Roman buildings. Over time, the name became "Wintancaester" of which the modern version, "Winchester" is a corruption.
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The arrival in Kent of St Augustine in the year 597 heralded the beginning of Rome's attempts to convert Southern England to Christianity. By the middle of the next century, the Old Minister had been built within the old Roman walls and, when the bishop of Wessex moved his seat to Winchester in 676, the Old Minster became a cathedral.
The town was the capital of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex, although not the only one. As Wessex vied for power with the other Saxon kingdoms and fortunes changed in the wars with the Danes, the boudaries of Wessex moved from time to time with the fortunes of war.
King Alfred the Great (c.871-c.901) established Winchester as his capital and revived the town, laying it out to a grid as the Romans had centuries previously. As with many Wessex towns during his reign, he made it into a fortified "burgh" from within which the attacks of the Danes could be repelled.
In 901, Alfred's successor, Edward the Elder, founded a second church with an attached monastery, known as the "New Minster" and, two years later, Alfred's widow founded a nunnery in the town originally known as "Nunnaminster" but later known as St Marys Abbey. Reform of the monastery attached to the Old Minster, later in the tenth century, created St Swithuns Priory. All the religious foundations of the town became widely known as centres of art and learning and famous for their illuminated manuscripts, jewellry, metalwork and embroidery.
St Swithun was bishop of Winchester in the mid ninth century.
Pre-conquest Winchester was a flourishing Saxon town and may have had a population of as many as eight thousand inhabitants with suburbs spilling out beyond the town walls outside Northgate and Westgate. Within was a royal palace, probably constructed at the beginning of the tenth century, and a mint.
Following the death of King Harold at the battle of Hastings in 1066, his widow stayed at Winchester. When the Conqueror arrived at Winchester, the queen surrendered the town to him and was allowed to live peacably. The capital of Saxon Wessex, was also the favoured capital of the Norman Kings of England. Not only did it offer access to England as well as easy access to their lands in Normandy, but Winchester was also close to the New Forest which had been established by William the Conqueror.
Because of the special position of Winchester and London neither were recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.
The Normans were great builders and William I rebuilt the royal palace in Winchester, making it twice the size of the old Saxon building. He also built a castle in the west of of the town with sixty houses demolished to make way for it. Hurriedly erected, it was a timber structure but was rebuilt in stone early in the twelfth century.
It was not only secular buildings in the town which were built or rebuilt. After 1079, the Normans demolished the cathedral, the "Old Minster", to make way for a new cathedral on the same site.
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It was probably at Winchester that the final copy of the Domesday Book was compiled by royal officials who formed the Norman precursor of the modern Exchequer.
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The Norman kings of England weilded power from the castle and the royal treasury was also at Winchester - one of the first acts of Henry I in seeking to secure the throne on the death of William II (Rufus) was to take possession of the castle and the treasury.
The body William II was brought to Winchester after his suspicious death while hunting in the New Forest in 1100.
Early in the twelfth century, St Marys Abbey (the "Nunnaminster" founded by Alfred the Great's widow, was rebuilt. The monastery attached to the New Minster was also moved to a new site north of town and later became known as Hyde Abbey.
The medieval Church ran the only 'hospitals' which not only cared for the sick, but also the aged and disabled. The Hospital of St Cross was built in in the town in 1136. Wolvesey castle, the residence of the bishop, was built also built early in the twelfth century.
The death of the only male heir to Henry I (1100-1135) with the Sinking of the White Ship (1120) resulted in the civil war of 1135-1154 between Henry I's daughter Maud or Matilda and her cousin Stephen as they fought for the throne. Henry, the powerful bishop of Winchester, although he was the brother of Stephen, initially sided with Matilda. He fell out with her in 1141 and a battle took placxe in the town, becomming known as the 'rout of Winchester.
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The changing of the Bishop's allegiance led to a strange situation at Winchester indeed; the Bishop and his men had taken up refuge in Wolvesey castle; Matilda and her army were in possession of the town and besiged the castle, while besieged herself by Stephen's army encamped beyond the walls of the town.
Eventually, Matilda's forces decided to fight their way out of Winchester through the town gates, but, during the fighting which ensued, parts of the town were set alight and burned.
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By 1200, Winchester had acquired the right to rule itself and had a mayor although the rise of the importance of London at its establishement as the country's capital during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was matched by a corresponding decline in Winchester - in the mid-thirttenth century, the royal mint which had been established in Winchester during the tenth century was moved to London.
In 1264, just over a century after the turmoil between Stephen and matilda, the country and Winchester were again thrown into a civil war, this time between the barons led by Simon De Monfort and King Henry III. While the townsfolk supported their monarch, the town's clergy supported De Monfort and the rebels. Matters came to a head in the town when it emerged the clerics intended to open the Kings Gate to the rebels - several of the clerics were killed and the Canon Gate was set ablze. The fire soon spread to the Kings gate and adjoining houses.
The rebels succeeded in capturing Winchester in 1265, looted its shops, and killed many Jews who, as tax collectors for the king, were very much despised.
The thirteenth century saw the arrival of two waves of priors in Winchester; in about 1230 the Dominicans ('Black Friars', because of their garb) settled between the river Itchen and Busket Street and the Franciscans (Grey Friars) settled near Eastgate. Almost fourty years later, in about 1278, the carmelites arrived to settle near St Michaels church and the Augustinians near Southgate.
Winchester castle was also rebuilt during the thirteenth century. Some of the changes updated the castle's defences in the light of developing technology - the original square keep was replaced by a round one whose walls were better at deflecting missiles. Some of the 'modernisations', such as the installation of hugely expensive glass in the windows were sheer luxury.
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Like any medieval town, Winchester was practically self-sufficient with its blacksmiths, butchers, carpenters, coopers, goldsmiths, grocers, shoemakers, wheelwrights, etc., but it was as an important centre of the wool trade that it prospered with its drapers, dyers, fullers, tailors and weavers. Competition in the wool trade from other towns, however, caused Winchester to slowly decline in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
As well as weekly markets, an annual fair was held outside the town on what became known as St Giles Hill. It started on the feast of St Giles at the end of August and lasted for sixteen days with the folk from a wide area of Hampshire and beyond comming to the town to buy, sell and be enbtertained.
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Disaster struck Winchester in 1348-1349 as the black death, imported unwittingly into Europe from the Middle East by the crusaders, spread from its landfall in the British Isles at Weymouth and ravaged Winchester's population, possibly killing as many as half of the inhabitants. The disease broke out again in 1361 and continued to reappear preiodically for many centuries.
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Bishop William of Wykeham (1320-1404) played an important part in the history of Wincheter. As bishop, he was responsible for the building much of the present cathedral and also founded Winchester College in 1382.
The Buttercross was built in the High Street in the fifteenth century although, with the town's cloth industry facing increasing competition from other towns, Winchester was in decline.
By 1500, as Winchester moved from the middle ages into the Tudor period, its population (which may have been 8,000 in the tenth century), had fallen to about 4,000.
Despite repeated outbreaks of the plague which claimed large numbers of victims in the sixteenth century, the population rose by about fifty per cent to number some 6,000 by 1600. An attempt was made to reverse the decline of the town by increasing the number of annual fairs to three in 1518, but with little success.
Henry VIII's (1509-1547) dissolution of the monasteries saw the demise of the religious houses in Winchester in 1538; Hyde Abbey, St Marys Abbey (Nunnaminster) and St Swithuns Priory were all dissolved, as were the friaries, but the hospital of St John Cross was spared. The lands of the religious houses were sold and the buildings scavanged for building materials.
In 1554, the Catholic Mary I (1553-1558) married King Philip of Spain at Winchester amidst English fears that England might become a province of Spain as a result of the marriage, as had happened with the Netherlands.
Pauperism became a problem in the sixteenth century as rising unemployment accompanied a rising population and led to the Poor Law of 1601. Apart of the problems of dealing with poverty, the establishiment feared that large numbers of unemployed might lead to civil unrest. The town council experimented with the opening of a house of correction in 1579 where the local unemployed, 'rogues' and 'sturdy vagabonds' were housed and taught a trade such as hat or glove making. The experiment might have worked had it not been for the anger the scheme created amongst the town's craftsmen who resented the competition.
The history of Winchester during the seventeenth century is dominated by repeated outbreaks of plague and the civil war between Charles I and Parliament.
The Black Death struck the town again in 1603, and in 1625. In 1665-1666, Winchester suffered its last outbreak of theplague.
When civil war broke out between Charles I and Parliament in 1642, the town supported its monarch and royalist soldiers occupied the town. It changed hands several times during the course of the war but, its position as the only royalist stronghold in the overwhelmingly Parliamentarian Hampshire led to much pillaging of the town. When the Parliamentary forces arrived in December, 1642 under Waller, they soon captured the town. The town council paid the parliamentary army £1,000 for their agreement not loot the town. Some of the soldiers looted the town anyway and also vandalised the cathedral before moving on to leave the town undefended.
A royalist army again occupied the town in November 1643 until March 1644 when they went out fight the parliamentarians at Cheriton Down near Petersfield and where they were defeated. They abandoned but left a garrison within the castle.
The parliamentarians took the town again but made no attempt to take the castle before, once again, moved on to leave Winchester undefended. A parliamentary army under Oliver Cromwell took the town in September 1645 and, a few days later, took its castle. With parliament ultimately victorious and England ruled by the parliamentary Commonwealth, the members of Winchester's town council were removed from their posts in 1649 for their support of the monarch during the war. In 1651, Commonwealth soldiers 'slighted' Winchester castle, rendering it indefensible and leaving only the great hall intact.
After the restoration of King Charles II (1660-1685), the king often visited Winchester and started to build a royal palace in the town. The palace was never finished and, after the king's death, it was abandoned completely.
The old residence of the bishops of Winchester, Wolvesey castle, had decayed into a ruinous condition and was replaced by a new palace in the late seventeenth century.
During the eighteenth century, Winchester was described by contemporary authors as a place of little trade or manufacture and grew slowly from about 4,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the century to less than 6,000 at its close. Despite this, many Georgian houses were built in Winchester while some of the older houses were 'modernised' with new Georgian facades. Various improvements were also made to the town during the century; the Guildhall was rebuilt (1711); the Royal Hampshire Hospital opened its doors in 1736; the Paving Commissioners were formed in 1771, charged with powers to pave and light the streets of the town with oil lamps and a theatre was opened in Jewry Street.
The City Mill was built in 1744 and the East, North and South gates of the once walled city were removed in the eighteenth century to ease the movement of traffic in and out of the city.
Winchester managed to recapture the prosperity it had sought but could not achieve since it was the country's capital and the medieval woollen industry declined through competition with the arrival of the railway in 1840. The ease of transport afforded by the railway encouraged new industries to the town and made it accessible to a steadily growing number of tourists.
The new-found prosperity is reflected in the census records which show the rapid growth of the city; from less than 6,000 inhabitants in 1801, Winchester grew to over 13,000 in 1851 and, by 1891, had nearly trippled its population to over 17,000.
The Hampshire Museum was founded in Winchester in 1847, supported entirely by voluntary subscription. By 1850, the museum was ailing badly and Winchester Corporation decided to take advantage of the Public Libraries and Museums Act passed in that year to revive the museum using local rates. At the same time, the Corporation decided to attach a public lending library to the musuem with a small stock and no separate librarian. The library is notable as the first of its kind to be established in Britain under the Act. The Westgate was made into a museum in 1898.
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'A Catalogue of the books of the Free Library of the Winchester Museum', compiled by Henry Moody in either 1857 or 1858 contains 883 entries, including 20 marked as 'merely works for reference'.
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A statue of King Alfred the Great was erected in the town in 1901 to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of his death (although modern historians now believe that he died in 899).
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One of the stranger incidents in the history of Winchester occured in 1908 and revolved around a Russian gun which had been captured during the Crimean war and stood in the Broadway. The mayor decided to remove the railings around the guns, an act which soon gavee rise to a rumour that the gun was going to be removed. The rumour resulted in a riot during which many windows were smashed.
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Winchester's first cinema openend in 1914. The war mwmmorial to those who lost their lives in the Great War (1914-1918) was erected in 1921.
The town's first council housing estate was built at Stanmore in the 1920 and, by 1939 the council had built 1,200 houses in the city.
A new by-pass was built in the 1930's to carry traffic past the congested streets of the city. It opened to traffic in 1938 and closed in 1994 when the controversial M3 motorrway extension was completed.
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