Postcard from Winchester - the Itchen
Winchester's river is The Itchen (it's too much to hope for that wherever Winchester is twinned with has a waterway called The Scratchen). Apparently in Roman times, the river was a bit of a bother, with being wet an all. The Romans got in their engineers and moved the river a few hundred yards to the left. The result is that today, the Itchen is possibly the most well behaved and mannered river I have ever seen, perfectly in keeping with the atmosphere of the town itself.
The river is about fifteen foot wide and a foot deep, and runs along what is now, thanks to building on both sides of the town, the backs of houses and a rather attractive footpath. It has all the advantages of a river; calming influence of water, ideal location for a riverside pub, ducks and so on, without the disadvantages that they can sometimes bring - raging angry torrents of water, graveyard for shopping trollies, bloated corpse lucky dip, that kind of thing. Apparently the river used to be twice as wide - oooohhhhhh, terrifying.
'Sire, hostile forces are massing on the other side of the river!'
'Worry not, they will never get across its expanse.'
'But sire...they have wellington boots!'
'Arse!'.
And so on.
The town still has a working water mill. Naturally this is now run by the National Trust and so one could buy bags of flour milled at the mill (I trust them, and did not look too closely at the empty bags from catering packs of Tesco value strong white flour in the bins round the back) as well as all the other necessities that populate a National Trust gift shop, such as jams, plush otters and a lady volunteer behind the till flustered by more than one customer at a time.
Because the temperature was so cold it hurt to take a deep breath, there was an interesting effect in the churning waters at the foot of the mill race, the spray had frozen to the lowest parts of the vegetation growing on the riverbank, giving the waterside a festive, decorative appearance, for all the world like those LED icicles that people hang from their guttering at Christmas, except not so chavvy.
The river wanders round the backs of houses and gardens, the gardens backing onto the river. One, rather magnificently, backs onto an area where the river diverts around...well it probably qualifies as an island, just, as 'stump in the water' sounds mean and it did have a population of three ducks. It also had space for somebody to nail up a (small) sign that read 'private'. What might seem like a mean and petty gesture was, in this instance, transformed into a magnificent one - imagine being able to say in all honesty that you had your own private island. Surely that is a privilege reserved for people like Richard Branson or Bond villains. Maybe Winchester is where Bond villains retire to, and the owner of the private island is constructing a death ray in his shed, an occupation he describes as 'pottering'.
The river is about fifteen foot wide and a foot deep, and runs along what is now, thanks to building on both sides of the town, the backs of houses and a rather attractive footpath. It has all the advantages of a river; calming influence of water, ideal location for a riverside pub, ducks and so on, without the disadvantages that they can sometimes bring - raging angry torrents of water, graveyard for shopping trollies, bloated corpse lucky dip, that kind of thing. Apparently the river used to be twice as wide - oooohhhhhh, terrifying.
'Sire, hostile forces are massing on the other side of the river!'
'Worry not, they will never get across its expanse.'
'But sire...they have wellington boots!'
'Arse!'.
And so on.
The town still has a working water mill. Naturally this is now run by the National Trust and so one could buy bags of flour milled at the mill (I trust them, and did not look too closely at the empty bags from catering packs of Tesco value strong white flour in the bins round the back) as well as all the other necessities that populate a National Trust gift shop, such as jams, plush otters and a lady volunteer behind the till flustered by more than one customer at a time.
Because the temperature was so cold it hurt to take a deep breath, there was an interesting effect in the churning waters at the foot of the mill race, the spray had frozen to the lowest parts of the vegetation growing on the riverbank, giving the waterside a festive, decorative appearance, for all the world like those LED icicles that people hang from their guttering at Christmas, except not so chavvy.
The river wanders round the backs of houses and gardens, the gardens backing onto the river. One, rather magnificently, backs onto an area where the river diverts around...well it probably qualifies as an island, just, as 'stump in the water' sounds mean and it did have a population of three ducks. It also had space for somebody to nail up a (small) sign that read 'private'. What might seem like a mean and petty gesture was, in this instance, transformed into a magnificent one - imagine being able to say in all honesty that you had your own private island. Surely that is a privilege reserved for people like Richard Branson or Bond villains. Maybe Winchester is where Bond villains retire to, and the owner of the private island is constructing a death ray in his shed, an occupation he describes as 'pottering'.
Labels: Food, History, Romans, Weather, Winchester
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