Great Well Drive area
The older buildings and taller buildings are mostly in this area. They include the Sun Inn which is a three-storey eighteenth-century building, Hayter House (now the Register Office) which was built in 1870, Nightingale House, and Nightingale Lodge. This group contains the tallest buildings in this area apart from those of the Industrial Estate.

On the corner of Cupernham Lane, there is a substantial block of two-storey flats built of pale yellow bricks. It is called Nightingale Lodge and is somewhere that provides nursing care.

Around Nightingale House is a series of chalet style buildings that contain more apartments. The complex includes a substantial conservatory with a pitched roof that acts as a communal lounge There are covered walkways that enable people to walk from one building to another protected from the elements.

The nearby doctors’ surgery in Great Well Drive continues the chalet-style design. It has steeply pitched and overhanging roofs and patients enter the surgery through a substantial porch with a pitched roof. There is a problem with the drainage of the car park resulting in large puddles in wet weather.

The Red Cross Hut is opposite the surgery and it is much older. It is a single-storey wooden board construction with a flat roof and metal-framed windows.

South & West of the Junior School
Great Well Drive (part), Hayter Gardens, Greenwood Close, Mallard Close, Latham Road, Nelson Close.

This part of lower Cupernham contains a mixture of houses and bungalows. They are mostly terraced or semi-detached, and some are built back to back.

The houses are faced with bricks and have pitched tiled roofs with some in Mallard Close having half-hips. The houses are mostly orange-red or red bricks. Some of the upper parts of the buildings are tile hung with red tiles, and there are a few courses of brick arranged for a decorative effect, such as laid upright (soldier course). Most of the houses have small porches, usually open but under tiled roofs. In Greenwood Close these are adjacent to small brick cupboards.

Nelson Close is built around a series of greens with open plan gardens, each having a village green feel. A few of the houses have back gardens that abut the roadway, but the houses are arranged in such a way that each part of the road is overlooked.

Provision for car parking varies between integral garages, separate garage blocks and open spaces.

Mercer Way
The houses in Mercer Way are of a higher density than elsewhere in this area. Both houses and bungalows are terraced.
The houses are two-storeys high, mostly brick finished, and many have a few rows of tiles hung immediately below the roof line. Some of the houses in the courtyards are rendered and painted.

The maisonettes have projecting porches giving small storage spaces at ground floor. Neither the houses nor the bungalows have any form of porch, not even a small projecting roof, which makes the houses look stark.

The flats are amongst the three-storey buildings in Romsey, a height that is unusual in the town. However they are not substantially taller than the houses which they resemble in style, and they have pitched roofs which help them to blend in with their surroundings. There are a few courses of tile hanging on the walls immediately below the roof.

As elsewhere in this part of lower Cupernham, chimneys are largely absent.

Sample windows

New Road and Old Road

The houses in New Road include some of the oldest in Cupernham, having been built over a period of the last century. They largely observe a common building line with houses set back from the road to give small front gardens. The houses vary between individual, semi-detached and a terrace of six. Some houses retain original sash and other windows and Edwardian porches. Chimneys are normal in this group of houses. The portion of New Road that runs northward and the houses in Old Road are much newer than those in New Road. In Old Road, the building line is straight but as the road curves, this gives varying sizes of front gardens. The houses are brick built and most of them extend over their garages. They have porches with pitched, tiled roofs, some of which extend over the front window.

Cupernham Green Estate
Homefield, Newlyn Walk, Fairfield, Smiths Field, Waterside Close and Canal Close

This development consists of three- and four-bedroom detached houses with three bedroom bungalows near the canal.

All the properties are brick built, some of the houses being faced on the upper level with a form of marble chippings. The brickwork is straightforward stretcher bond but with a soldier course between levels on the houses. Roofs are all gable ended and with brick chimneys on the houses.

Most windows are uPVC or aluminium many now incorporating opening lights. Most of the homes have porches with small wood and tile canopies overhead which match the overhanging bays on the lounge windows of some of the four bedroom properties.

Most properties have single garages, usually of brick construction with tiled roofs, although a few of the bungalow garages have flat roofs.

Many houses have been extended with additional rooms being added, in materials matching the original construction.

Oxlease Close
Oxlease Close is a self-contained development of twenty, two-storey detached houses with garages, some detached and some double. There is a small fence-lined footpath leading to Cupernham Lane, but otherwise the only access to these houses is the road from Fishlake Meadows.

The houses are faced with brick, with uPVC windows. One group of house has cathedral style windows over the stairwell. All of the roofs are pitched with a mixture of hipped, half hipped and gabled styles and are tiled. Most houses have chimneys.

This estate has small front gardens with landscaping breaking up the spaces between each house, notably low hedging around some of the frontages.

Between the Canal and Robert Whitworth Drive
Oatlands, Horsecroft, The Meadows

The houses between Robert Whitworth Drive and the Barge Canal are in two groups separated by an old field hedgerow. To the south-west are Oatlands and Horsecroft. These houses are mainly detached, and generally of a higher density than those to the north. The roofs are all pitched. The garages are either attached to houses or in small groups between houses.

To the north of the hedgerow is The Meadows. The houses in this road are detached. All are of red brick construction and most are part tile-hung. They have chimneys and moderately steep pitched roofs. Most houses are of two storeys although some have loft conversions with rooflights windows.

The houses in this area are mostly detached, with some terraced houses in Neville Drive. Tithe Mead, to the north, was built after the others, and the gardens are noticeably smaller.

Westbroke Gardens is designed around a large public open space, with good-sized front gardens, giving the area a pleasant, spacious feel. All the houses are of two storeys with pitched roofs in a variety of styles. The detached houses have chimneys. The houses are built of brick, and some are part tile-hung. Some of the larger houses are double-fronted.

Most of the houses have their own garages. Several properties in Westbroke Gardens have shared driveways, and in Rowse Close there is communal off-road parking in front of the houses. The area is well served by public footpaths.

South west of Robert Whitworth Drive
Grayling Mead, St John’s Gardens, Lawrence Mews, Gaston Gardens, Eldridge Gardens, The Cloisters, Tench Way, Kingfisher Way, and Withy Close

Apart from a single bungalow, these houses are a mixture of detached, semi-detached and terraced two-storey dwellings.

The roofs of all the houses are pitched. The detached and semi-detached houses have chimneys. Most of the houses are brick-faced, with some part tile-hung and some rendered or part-rendered. The brickwork is predominantly orange-brown and yellow, with none of the red brickwork typical of this part of Hampshire.

The windows are generally casement, and many of the houses built in the late 1990s have leaded front windows. Some of these houses have decorative timber features on the upper storey.

A few of the houses have extensions, especially over the garage. Generally these are sympathetic to the surrounding buildings. Some houses have decorative brick features on rendered walls, which together with the predominantly ‘portrait’ style windows give them a Victorian appearance.

The Romsey Industrial Estate
These buildings do not greatly affect the view from Fishlake Meadows and Lower Cupernham. The estate itself is made up of a variety of sized units, mostly brick faced. The bigger ones present large areas of plain brickwork to the adjacent roads but the smaller ones with their varied name-boards give a feeling of well-being and vitality to the area.

The Railway Station and its environs
Many people walk under the railway station arch on their way to and from Romsey. The railway station, a fine Victorian building, is somewhat neglected.

Storm water collects in the tunnel and water drips down from above. Many people complain that the road surface is uneven and unattractive. The railway embankment is overgrown and is regarded as unkempt. The security fencing that lines both sides of the path immediately north of the tunnel creates a hostile environment for pedestrians.

The absence of access to the station from the northern side of the railway line means that passengers have to make a complicated detour to reach the platform for trains to Southampton. The only public access entails using stairs which creates difficulties for the disabled.