(To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR-"l Sta,—May I also
make an appeal through your columns to Wyke- hamists, and lovers of the beautiful, to do all in their power to prevent the destruction of Ringsgate Street, Winchester?
The Winchester College War Memorial, which is to consist of .• cloister and a school hall, involves an enormous amount of pulling down of existing buildings : a racket court, seven fives courts, and part of the original wall of Meads: the Quingentenary Memorial buildings are to be taken down brick by brick and put elsewhere. and in order to make room for this and other buildings which the Governing Body propose to build apart from the War Memorial, seven good houses in Kingsgate Street are to be pulled down, and the most beautiful street in Winchester will be entirely spoilt. Any person with the smallest sense of beauty will admire this dear little street, with its quaint irregular Louses, no two alike, some with steps leading up to them, others level with the pavement : "a thing of beauty, and a joy for ever."
Winchester has already been threatened with further spoliation. as the Committee of the Hampshire War Memorial propose to destroy the most beautiful corner of the 'Cathedral churchyard: to level the grass slope, cutdown fine old trees, cut into the old wall close by, and to put up a gateway, through which, by devious ways, along which they have never passed before, the men of the Hampshire Regiment will march to Cathedral. Is there no pro- tection for us against. these acts of vandalism ? At this time, when we read of the destruotion of beautiful places in France and Belgium, it seems an utterly unworthy thing to destroy beautiful places in England in order to memorialize our dear dead, who have fought and died so nobly.
The whole plan for the Winchester College Memorial is to my mind entirely selfish. By all means let there be a fine visible memorial. somewhere in the College grounds, and I understand that some of the money collected is to be wed for a chariteNe 'sullies() not yet specified, and which is evidently of secondary importance; but why should not something' be done in France or Belgium, where so many of our fellow-Wykeharaists have laid down their lives ? With one slight alteration I quote the poet who says—
Let not our aims be to ourselves confined, But go abroad and think of all mankind."
I write with deep feeling, having lived in Winchester for fifty years, fifteen of which were lived in Kingsgate Street, and I dearly love it all.—I am, Sir, &c., AGNES C. MOBERLY.
St. Michael's Lodge, Winchester.
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