Hampshire: Winchester and the North

The northern half of Hampshire covers territory ranging from the rolling chalk downland of the Test and Itchen valleys to the Wealden edge and the heathlands at the borders with Surrey and Berkshire. Winchester is not only unrivalled for medieval architecture but like many of the smaller towns, such as Alton and Alresford, has some of the most charming streets in the southern counties. The countryside is rich in small villages, with buildings of a delightful mix of timber-framing, brick, flint and tile, and an abundance of houses and gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement. There are fine country houses of every period, from the quiet grandeur of The Vyne to the Victorian showpiece of Highclere Castle. But the area also has late twentieth-century architecture of great distinction, much of it by the county's own architects, and several monuments of unique interest, from Jane Austen's house at Chawton, to the spectacular French Imperial mausoleum at Farnborough Abbey and Stanley Spencer's moving series of war paintings for the chapel at Burghclere.