Castle Hill is a series of buildings used as council offices in

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, England. There are two main structures both of which are Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

s: the Castle Hill Offices on the east of Castle Avenue and the Castle Avenue Offices on the west of Castle Avenue. They take their name from

Winchester Castle Winchester Castle is a medieval building in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1067. Only the Great Hall still stands; it houses a museum of the history of Winchester. History Early history Around AD 70 the Romans constructed a ...

, which is located at the south end of Castle Avenue.

History

The complex was originally designed by Owen Browne Carter in the Elizabethan style and completed in 1833. It was initially used as offices to support the local judicial authorities, who dispensed justice from

, but, following the implementation of the

Local Government Act 1888 The Local Government Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 41) was an Act of Parliament (United Kingdom), act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established county councils and county borough councils in England and Wales. It came into effect ...

, which established

county councils A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries. Australia In the Australian state of New South Wales, county council (New South Wales), co ...

in every

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

, it also became the offices and meeting place for

Hampshire County Council Hampshire County Council (HCC) is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Hampshire in England. The council was created in 1889. The county council provides county-level services to eleven of the thirteen districts geo ...

. The Castle Hill Offices were rebuilt to a design by James Robinson and Sir Arthur Blomfield in 1895. The design, which was completed in

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

and

Bath stone Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate originally obtained from the Middle Jurassic aged Great Oolite Group of the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its h ...

, involved an asymmetrical main frontage on the east side of Castle Avenue; the central section featured two large

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an ...

s on the left and a tower and a round headed doorway on the right. Internally, the principal rooms in the Castle Hill Offices were the council chamber and the committee rooms. The Castle Avenue Offices were rebuilt in two phases: the first section, which was designed by William John Taylor and Sir Thomas Jackson, was completed in 1912 and the second section, which was designed by Sir Herbert Baker, was completed in 1932. The design, which was also completed in flint and Bath stone, involved an asymmetrical main frontage on the west side of Castle Avenue; it featured a variety of oriel windows,

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

windows and transom windows. From the late 19th century the offices also accommodated the headquarters of the 1st Volunteer Battalion of

Hampshire Regiment The Hampshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 37th (North Hampshire) Regiment of Foot and the 67th (South Hampshire) Regiment of Foot. The re ...

. This unit evolved to become the 4th Battalion the Hampshire Regiment in 1908. The battalion was mobilised at Castle Hill in August 1914 before being deployed to

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. The council later outgrew the offices at Castle Hill. Queen Elizabeth II Court, a large red-brick rectangular building with a clock tower and a central courtyard, was built to the north of Castle Hill on the opposite side of Upper High Street and was completed in 1960. The Castle Hill Offices continue to be occupied by the county council who use them for their council chamber and also as the location of their Basing and Portal meeting rooms. In September 2014 the buildings also became the home of the Winchester Register Office.

References

{{reflist Drill halls in England Buildings and structures in Winchester

Government buildings completed in 1833