Winchester today is a city of many delights, threaded by the gin-clear waters of the River Itchen, which is no doubt what attracted settlement there in the first place. Some 20km to the south, the river flows into Southampton Water and the Solent, favoured embarkation points for trade and communication with the Continent since the Bronze Age.
The line of the city’s present High Street probably represents an ancient transhumance route (that is, one used for the seasonal movement of livestock) and, as you follow it up the hill that leads to the chalk downs north-west of the city, you will pass William the Conqueror’s castle (c.1067). It is from there, after passing through the Westgate, that Angel Clare looks back down to the County Gaol and the black flag that signals the end of the life of Tess of the d’Urbervilles in Hardy’s tragic novel of that name.
Iron Age introductions
Continuing west after crossing the deep cutting that brings the railway into Winchester, you will reach the green space that is Oram’s Arbour (see CA 2, CA 176, and CA 271). Carinated bowls of roughly 5th- to 4th-century BC date and circular drip gullies representing roundhouses – as well as two post-built structures of similar date found further east in the city – testify to an early Iron Age presence in this location. There then appears to have been a hiatus in the middle Iron Age (4th to mid-2nd century BC), before the main period of occupation began in the later middle Iron Age (from the mid-2nd century BC). It was at this time that a massive V-shaped enclosure ditch was constructed, with a circuit of c.1.85km, a typical depth of about 4m, a maximum recorded depth of 4.9m, and a width of up to 9.5m. Within the enclosure, numerous gullies, pits, post-holes, and hearths have been found as evidence for significant levels of activity and occupation.
