Winchester Palace Appeal

WINCHESTER PALACE GARDEN UNVEILED

Wherever you are within our city that you should be able to turn and see something green and beautiful – this is BOST’s vision and its shared by residents on busy narrow Clink Street. We are working together to create a medieval style garden within the sunken ruined great hall of Winchester Palace, a listed historic site tucked away on Clink Street, and an interpretation programme to help residents and visitor discover the unique history here.

We are delighted to have the support of Time Team’s Tony Robinson, click here to hear him share his love of Clink Street’s history and explain why this project is immportant.

What was so special about Winchester Palace?

The Bishop of Winchester was a favoured appointment of the King. The title came with this extensive and luxurious Southwark residence including direct river access, a private garden, a prison and freedom to set taxes and revenues for trades banned from the City within the ‘Liberty of The Clink’.
The Palace remained in use until the 17th century, when it was divided into tenements and warehouses. It was largely destroyed by fire in 1814 and the remnants were finally revealed in the 1980s during redevelopment of the area. You can now see a stone west gable wall incorporating a striking rose window, and parts of the stone foundation walls of the original Great Hall building, enclosing its vaulted undercroft. These remains today are designated as a Grade 1 listed historic monument and are in the care of English Heritage.
We believe that the Palace remains sit at the centre of significant historical period, one which had dramatic impact on Bankside’s development and social history. This was a period of licensing of banned trades by the Bishop within his Liberty of the Clink, encompassing the nearby Clink Prison, the Crossbones Graveyard, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

Our vision

Our vision is to explore and share the rich history,  create a sunken garden with planting popular in late medieval gardens, reveal the historic foundation walls to provide structure to this, and use the new garden to launch a programme of interpretation and events about Bankside’s history.
BOST has been working extensively with Clink St residents, Bankside Residents Forum, Better Bankside and Bankside Urban Forest, English Heritage and Southwark Council.
By creating a garden of this kind in an otherwise hard urban townscape largely defined by its former docklands warehouses and railway viaducts, our aspirations for the project are to:
- Enhance the setting of the historic monument and improve its visibility and presentation by day and, through improved, sensitive floodlighting, by night.
- Introduce some green space to the area for all who enjoy passing along this part of the Thames Path.
- Make the site more attractive and effective as an educational facility for interpreting history, by drawing greater attention to the foundation walls in particular, and incorporating some planting popular in late medieval gardens.
- Improve interpretation with new boards and new technology.
- Incorporate the space in local trails and walks for use by the Cathedral and others providing local history walks and talks.

Fundraising

We’ve carried out an extensive study to fully understand the project’s requirements and have a fundraising target of £137,000 in order to bring the Winchester Palace Garden into realisation. We’re really grateful for some generous donations from local people, and offers of help from Watermans and other local engineering and construction companies. But we have still a long way to go to reach our target. Do please let us know if you would like to contribute.
We’ve even got our own ‘virtual collection tin’. We’ve got our very own JustTextGiving account. If you’d like to make a contribution of up to £10, you can do so by texting the following:
BOST11 £10 and send to 70070.
Every penny will go direct to the Winchester Palace Garden Project and you’ll receive by return a thank you text giving you a link to a Giftaid form.
We’re Tweeting! For updates on our project, why not follow us? Check out twitter.com/garden4clinkst