Century House, 30-31 Jewry Street, Winchester, Hampshire. Historical Building Recording and Archaeological Monitoring Investigation. (OASIS ID: cotswold2-280801)
Cotswold Archaeology, 2018. https://doi.org/10.5284/1047206. How to cite using this DOI
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Primary contact
Hazel
O'Neill
Cotswold Archaeology
Building 11
Cotswold Business Park
Cirencester
GL7 6BQ
UK
Tel: 01285 772624
Resource identifiers
- ADS Collection: 3057
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1047206
- How to cite using this DOI
Introduction
Cotswold Archaeology was commissioned by Versant Developments (Jewry) Limited in February 2015 to carry out a programme of Historical Building Recording and an Archaeological Monitoring Investigation at 30-31 Jewry Street, Winchester. The report has been commissioned to comply with a requirement to mitigate the impacts of the development on the Grade II Listed Building.
The building at 30-31 was commenced in 1925 as the headquarters of the Hampshire and General Friendly Society in their centenary year (thus its name). It was completed in 1928. The architect was T. D. Atkinson from Basingstoke who produced a very competent neo-Georgian design in brick with a Portland Stone façade, mentioned briefly in Pevsner. The design was standard for a bank of the time, with an imposing and reassuring façade and sumptuous interior fittings. The basement was a mix of services (boilers, coal and coke stores, other storage, WCs etc. and the bank’s vaults and “occasional” offices). The ground floor was largely given over to an impressive entrance hall and a large “General Office” or banking hall, with stairs, a meeting room, a further strong room and a private office fitted in.
The first floor was given over to the administration of the society, with a Committee Room, Typist’s Room, Secretary’s Room, and the Boardroom. The latter two were very grandly fitted-out with high quality panelling and other fittings.
The top floor was reached by the secondary stair in the south-west corner and was probably a manager’s flat. It only occupied the front range, the rear block being two-storeyed. An oddity of this floor was that the part of it that over sailed the “vanway”, the rear access alleyway, was split in two and the southern half was in the occupation of the neighbours to the south (no. 32). This narrow strip was later united with no’s. 30-31.
The Society had closed by 1989 and the building was used until recently as the base for the Winchester City Church. It is currently being converted into a restaurant and residential accommodation.
The Archaeological Monitoring Investigation consisted of the reduction of a ramp which lay to the rear of the building. The groundworks revealed post-medieval garden soil and several layers of modern made ground associated with the ramp and infilling between the ramp and the retaining to the east. No features or deposits of archaeological interest were observed during groundworks as the excavation did not go below and still lay within post-medieval garden soil. No artefactual material pre-dating the modern period was recovered.
