8. Presentation to local schools - a mystery figure and a competition
The Charter Stone was conceived as a lasting work of art that would reflect an aspect of the history of Romsey and become an enduring symbol of the town. Thus it was especially important to introduce the concept to Romsey’s children.

The initial contact was with the two secondary schools in the summer of 2005 where the exhibition (described in section 6) showing the two short-listed designs were displayed in turn and the pupils invited to make their comments and express a preference. Their completed questionnaires were added to those obtained from the exhibition in King John's House.

A PowerPoint presentation was made for the four primary schools in the town to tell the children about the Town Charter granted to Romsey by King James I in 1607 and the way in which the Society had decided to celebrate its 400th anniversary. Presentations were made to the schools during the summer and autumn terms of 2006.

These resulted in some very productive interactive sessions with the children held at assemblies in all four schools. The children had little problem with the names of their local rivers and streams and could identify a number of locations. They were introduced to the older names used for the streams including Saxon ones like Terstand, Tersten, Terste, Toerstan, Testan, all for the River Test. Some of these were to be carved on the Charter Stone.

Royal connections with Romsey starting with James 1st and what the town gained by receiving the Royal Charter were explained. The children learnt about the role of the Mayor and were shown pictures of the Mayoral robes (inset) and the Coat of Arms (above). The last part of the talk introduced the design of the Charter Stone with a computer-generated depiction showing the old and new names of the river, streams and mills cascading down a 4-metre high column of Portland stone. A final point of interest was to say that a mystery figure was to be carved on the Stone. The children would be invited to identify the figure by taking part in a competition after the erection of the stone.

Local builder Bruce Harris was chosen to prepare the foundation to Andrew Waring’s specification. TVBC’s Heritage Officer Frank Green kindly offered to carry out an archaeological watch whilst the foundation was being dug. HCC kindly supplied copies of documents showing all the underground services in the area. Rod Hoyle was asked to design and give the cost of making and fitting an engraved slate plaque to accompany the Charter Stone.

The total of the costs from the artists and the builder was around £30,000 including a contingency for preparing and installing the Stone but without any contingency for potential problems with the foundation.

The foundation could clearly cause problems. It was to be dug on an archaeologically sensitive site close to Romsey Abbey where only two years previously road works had been delayed by the discovery of Saxon bones. The archaeological costs for the proper treatment of such a find would have to be borne by the Society and could have come to around £10,000. In addition, the chosen site may have been on peaty ground like the adjacent Magistrates' Court so the foundation may have needed piling costing several thousands of pounds. Finally, there was the risk that an underground service might be discovered which was not on the HCC plan. This could have been very serious and may have resulted in the site being abandoned.

Clearly, a contingency allowance for all these potential problems would be unrealistic and a median figure was chosen.

The choice was very limited because there are many underground services in the area in addition to the culverted river Fishlake which runs in front of the Magistrates' Court. A point between two of the bench seats to the south side of the Court was the final choice although Gary Breeze and the team felt that the Charter Stone ideally called for a less cluttered setting.

Advertisement consent (cost £265) was also needed from TVBC to allow the plaque to be fitted to the wall of the Magistrates' Court. Permission also had to be obtained from TVBC and HCC to replace an existing poetry plaque on the Magistrates' Court wall with the proposed Charter Stone plaque. It all took a lot of time.

The remainder of the cash was obtained from local developers, principally Stanborough Developments, under an agreement which requires that a certain percentage of the cost of development projects is set aside for such purposes. The Society itself had previously allocated £3,500 to the project and it was decided that this should be part of the contingency allowance.

Thus, no funding was derived from the council taxpayer