Grounds

Winchester is hugely fortunate in having extensive grounds of approximately 250 acres. We maintain the Fallodon Nature Reserve with its permissive public paths (50 acres) and own St Catherine’s Hill and Twyford Down (137 acres) which are both Public Access Areas. Additionally we maintain some 52 acres of playing fields and 11 acres of formal gardens. (A further 400 acres, including a golf course, on the far side of the M3 are also owned by the School).

There is a staff of eleven. Five groundsmen are responsible for the playing fields, a staff of two is responsible for all the formal on-site gardens in addition to the general campus grounds and a further two gardeners deal with the ten boarding houses off the main campus. As each of these latter gardens is approximately three quarters of an acre, there is always something requiring attention. In general each boarding house has half a day’s work a week and when big projects require more manpower, other ground staff will help.

The formal gardens on the campus – the Warden’s Garden, Moberly Court, Sick House, Paradise Regained – all provide ordered open space within the fourteenth and later centuries’ buildings. Other less formal gardens and landscaped spaces, of which there are many, all add to the pleasingly open nature of the campus.

The remaining two staff are the River Keepers and they take responsibility for five miles of water – the Itchen and the canals and waterways connected thereto.

Photographs of some of these aspects can be seen in other sections of the site in addition to those on this page.