Winchester, United Kingdom Hotels, Vacations, Tourism

Nowadays a tranquil, handsome market town, set amid docile hay-meadows and watercress beds, WINCHESTER was once one of the mightiest settlements in England. Under the Romans it was Venta Belgarum, the fifth largest town in Britain, but it was Alfred the Great who really put Winchester on the map when he made it the capital of his Wessex kingdom in the ninth century. For the next couple of centuries Winchester ranked alongside London, its status affirmed by William the Conqueror's coronation in both cities and by his commissioning of the local monks to prepare the Domesday Book . It wasn't until after the … more »