DESPITE the efforts of others to probe the past, Chronicle’s own Belgarum often gets the scoop. These could be plans to preserve historic wall advertisements in Winchester, or places where people went to ‘swim in the wild’ 100 years ago, or Dr Helen Roche’s talk on Winchester College and others. in the elite schools of the Third Reich, recently published.

The discoveries of archaeologists also continue to unveil the secrets of the past. Tests show that “there could be substantial and deep deposits under the Silver Hill area,” according to Keith Wilkinson. And Professor Martin Biddle even put forward a Roman amphitheater.

A thorough excavation in Hursley Park by the Winchester Archaeological & Local History Society and the University of Winchester has revealed the home of the short-lived Lord Protector, Richard Cromwell, nicknamed “Tumbledown Dick”. It was demolished in 1721 by Sir William Heathcote, although a sketch remains of a 1588 estate plan owned by IBM.

Son of Oliver Cromwell, he acquired the mansion when he married Dorothy Major (or Maijor), daughter of a former Southampton Mayor, Member of Parliament and High Sheriff of Hampshire. Excavators found underground passages, a vaulted cellar, and even keys that could once have provided access to the house. Expect a Netflix blockbuster.

Recent excavations at the site of the Winchester College Sports Center in Kingsgate Park have found thousands of medieval artifacts and also followed the Gynge Lane route, last mapped in the 1370s, just a few years before William of Wykeham did not found the school.

The people of Hyde continue to tolerate their gardens being dug out to expose the foundations of Hyde Abbey. The essential works of Hyde Street have also been rich, with finds of masonry associated with the north gate through the city walls. A weathered stone nearby simply indicates that “it fell in 1750”. The remains are believed to be part of a bridge that once crossed the town’s moat.

Even more concrete is the old Hyde Gate, near St Bartholomew’s Church in King Alfred Place. Friends of Hyde Gate founder Edward Fennell, author of Charter for Hyde Gate, gathers resources to lobby to improve the structure and its surroundings, now mainly the stockpile of pigeons, drug traffickers and worse still.

In support, Cllr John Tippett-Cooper said, “Hyde Gate is one of Winchester’s heritage gems and it’s great that Friends of Hyde Gate and Hyde900 have engaged the public on its future.

Currently, Winchester City Council is installing electric bird scarers to ward off pigeons.

New plans are underway to build a D-Day memorial in Stokes Bay, Gosport, where many huge concrete caissons or Phoenixes for Mulberry Harbors were built, before being towed across the Channel. The idea was apparently first sketched out by Winston Churchill in a note to Lloyd George in 1915.

Excavations were carried out at Morn Hill by a team from the University of Winchester led by Dr Phil Marter at the site of the World War I camp used by thousands of Americans en route to the Western Front. The searches made it possible to discover the prison where the unruly “raps” were punished. Estimates suggest that at one point as many as 50,000 troops were stationed here.

The Spitfire continues to make the news. Despite the Herculean efforts of the Spitfire Makers Charitable Trust, which collected 50,000 signatures to save the hangars used to build the aircraft on Wide Lane, Swaythling, Southampton City Council decided in November to demolish them to make way for ” industrial units ”.

Much of the people who made, supported and piloted the Spitfire can be found in the recent article published by Alasdair Cross. Spitfire children, examined in the the Chronicle by Tom Bromley, who wrote: “Alisdair described how, in the years leading up to the war, Southampton and the South Coast were somewhat of a high-tech hub, a ‘Silicon Valley’ of the 1930s, with Thornycroft shipyards also [like Supermarine] at Woolston, building corvettes and destroyers, and the Pirelli factory making parts for aircraft, boat, and ammunition machinery.

The Supermarine S5 Seaplane Charity orders work to build a replica of the machine that was a precursor to the Spitfire. Within a few years, this iconic RJ Mitchell-designed aircraft could be seen on the water off Calshot, where it won races for the Schneider Trophy in 1929 and 1931.

Another Spitfire landmark is the memorial to a collision between two trainers over Abbotstone in July 1944, when three pilots were killed. The project was led by Glenn Gilbertson and the Alresford Historical and Literary Society and dedicated in September during Wings Week. A fragment of one of the planes is on display at the Alresford Museum.

Hampshire local history groups have made great strides, despite the pandemic. The Ropley History Network won a large grant from the National Lottery, as well as a £ 500 grant from the Hampshire Archives Trust. The money will be used to create a digital archive and a website.

Also supported by the HAT with a grant of over £ 1,700, the Bishop’s Waltham Oral History Group works with the Bishop’s Waltham Museum to record and preserve interviews. A by-product of the city is the Basingwell Street ‘Talking Bench’, where you can rest and listen to 1940s war memorabilia.

The HAT grant is part of the £ 178,000 awarded by the association to 32 different projects. In collaboration with the Hampshire Field Club, the HAT also organized “Hands-On Local History” zoom sessions against the pandemic. Videos of the 12 events are on the HAT YouTube channel (www.hantsfieldclub.org.uk).

Another award for HFC is the Celebrating Hampshire’s Historians project, which was selected in competition with other counties to mark the centenary of the Institute of Historical Research.

The past comes to life in old photographs, such as those from the Hampshire Cultural Trust collections of the neighborhoods of Winchester, which were taken in the the Chronicle – on Stanmore, which celebrated its centenary in October, on Weeke, Winnall and Highcliffe.

Historians continue to unearth fascinating stories, like the adventures of HMS Calliope in a hurricane off Samoa in 1889, studied by Tom Watson and Ian Glenday, and Robert Nurden’s new book Between heaven and earth on the extraordinary life of Four Marks writer Stanley B James.

Likewise, Ian Denness told the story of North Walls Recreation Ground and also discovered a lost cricket ground within the grounds of Hyde Abbey School (later Winchester’s first library and museum) – where PM Canning and others have been educated.

The past often speaks in the present. I recently wrote about the history of plant hunting (the Chronicle, December 16) and mentioned Lattice stinkhorn (Clathrus ruber), a rare fungus that has only been reported six times throughout Hampshire. Out of the blue came an email from Chris Pines saying his garden is full of them. He wrote: “Every year since then [1950s] 2 to 20 “stone eggs” appear in the aisles, followed by the foul red baskets of mushrooms, making the whole area smell like rotting plant matter. I guess in total we saw numbers of a few hundred in our garden. ”

And he sent photos to prove it.

To find out more about Hampshire, visit: www.hampshirearchivestrust.co.uk and www.hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

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LEGENDS

Richard Cromwell. Image: Gérard Soest

Phoenix under construction, Stokes Bay, Gosport, 1944. Image: Friends of Stokes Bay

Shot of WWI camp, Morn Hill, Winchester. Image: Friends of St Giles’ Hill

Theater for American troops on Morn Hill, Winchester. Image: Friends of St Giles’ Hill

Glenn Gilbertson (right) and Roy Gentry with a fragment of a Spitfire from the 1944 crash

Flight Lt Bernard Lees GM, who died in an accident over Abbotstone in 1944

ends