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Phoebe Merrick

Area Setting and Landscape Open and other spaces Settlement Pattern Building Form & materials page 1 Building Form & materials page 2 Streets and Street Furniture Trees/Hedges Boundary Features Consultation Process

Settlement Pattern

Before the mid-nineteenth century there were few buildings in this part of Romsey. Travellers using the eastbound road came under the Sun Arch railway bridge and worked their way up the hill towards Winchester. However, as the century progressed, a few wealthy people started to build villas along the road, starting with Chirk Lodge and progressing eastwards. These villas were amongst the largest houses in Romsey and stood in substantial grounds. A more modest development took place with the creation of The Crescent, a line of detached turn-of-the-century houses perched on the edge of the slope that leads down the Tadburn valley.

The Crescent

Romsey Hospital was moved to Winchester Road from Greatbridge Road in 1931. Below the hospital, adjacent to the railway line, is a substantial piece of land that was, for many years, its kitchen garden. This plot is landlocked and has no easy vehicular access. There are car parks both east and west (above and below) the hospital with separate entrances from the main road.

Winchester Hill

Winchester Road is very steep in the vicinity of the hospital and the road is in a cutting to make the slope easier. On either side, the banks of the cutting are covered with grass, above which are shrubs and hedges. On the northern side, there are some small trees. At the top of the hill is a car show room, together with a convenience shop (Co-Op) and petrol station.

There is a small industrial site adjacent to the garage with buildings that lie to the west and on the hillside and they have an emergency exit into Cupernham Lane. These buildings are partially screened by the bank, although they are particularly obvious from The Crescent. However there is a more level stretch of grass near the entrance to the garage on which cars are sometimes parked as part of the garage’s advertising activities.

Industrial and car sales

Windfield Drive

Apart from the villas that lie on either side of the road, there are several small developments that have been built on the backlands, often in plots that once contained villas. The first of these, on the north, is Bow Lane which is adjacent to the garage. Windfield Drive is the second of these developments and there is a third one, the houses being numbered as part of Winchester Road.

On the south side of Winchester Road, The Crescent is an old example of backland development and Deansfield Close is a small modern one. The Crescent is partially a private road. It is a crescent, but with a side shoot that leads down the hill. Whereas the first houses are Victorian, some are much more recent. The Crescent dwellings have names not house numbers and the same is true of the adjacent part of Winchester Road. Nerquis Close is a small development that replaced a substantial house and grounds in The Crescent.

Nerquis Close

There are blocks of flats in the south-west corner of the area adjacent to the Sun Arch which are less than ten years old and Clarence House, to the east of The Crescent, has been rebuilt as a small apartment block.

The 1920s and 1930s saw development in Upper Cupernham along the eastern side of Cupernham Lane. These buildings were mostly bungalows, although some houses date from this period. They were very much individual properties in large plots of land and have no common building line. As the land slopes upwards from the road, they are largely hidden from the casual observer.

Drives to houses above Cupernham Lane

There are several houses that lie above these and which are reached by means of private drives. Some of these houses have been built since the Second World War. Finally there are a few houses and bungalows to the north of the junction with Richmond Lane and Cupernham Lane some of which lie beyond the roundabout that marks the intersection with Fishlake Meadows.

Much of Woodley Lane has bungalows, both on the northern side of the slope, and on the eastern side of the level ground where the road turns due north. Both these groups of bungalows have common building lines.

Bungalow on Woodley Lane

Durban House from Durban Close

There are a few houses that intersperse the bungalows, which have been built at various times since the First World War. Durban House is older than most of the other houses. It stands on the crest of the hill above Durban Close and is now a nursing home.

Most of the upper Cupernham area was developed in the period of large scale housing development in the town during the 1960s and 1970s, although some groups of houses are more recent. Houses were built in Richmond Lane and part of Brook Way, but bungalows are common throughout Carisbrooke Court, Durban Close, Cupernham Close and the northern side of Brook Way, in particular. Both bungalows and houses throughout upper Cupernham are detached and most have substantial gardens.

Barton Close and the adjacent parts of Fairview Drive, although adjacent to a different form of housing in Woodley, are typical of Upper Cupernham. They comprise a small group of substantial buildings although with gardens that are relatively small for this area. In this they are similar to Ashley Meadows which is a turning off Woodley Lane. The houses in this development are grouped around a circular mound, with two offshoots to south and east.

Ashley Meadows

Durban Close

Durban Close and Carisbrooke Court are both hillside developments. The entrance to Durban Close is off Cupernham Lane, with its spur called Cupernham Close. Carisbrooke Court is approached from Woodley Lane and splits into three sections at the top of the hill, but the whole development has a common name.

Richmond Lane is the most northerly turning off Cupernham Lane in this part of Romsey. The narrow road curves across the slope of the hill and thus does not give good sight lines for drivers. On each side of the road the houses have a regular building line although they are set well back from the lane. This is partly to make a statement about the relative size of their gardens and partly a way of responding to the contours of the hillside.

Richmond Lane looking North East

Brook Way looking South West

Brook Way leads off Richmond Lane. The houses on the south-eastern side are below the level of the roadway. The north-western side of the road is lined with bungalows set above the road level forming a line of buildings on the edge of urban Romsey. The pavement is separated from the road by grass in places and enriched by bulbs in the spring. It is a feature of the area that it has a very settled population, many of the original owners of the late twentieth-century houses still living in them.

Design Recommendations

	Discourage future use of the grass verge on Winchester Hill for the commercial display of motor vehicles.
	Any development should seek to maintain existing building lines.