The breakfast room was still very quiet and lacking atmosphere. The self-service offering was luke warm rather than hot.

After breakfast we chilled out in our room looking out over the Cathedral green before it was time to attend the 11.15 Easter Day service in the Cathedral. The service was excellent and we received communion from the Bishop and Archdeacon. When it came for the greeting part of the service, the Bishop walked up the aisle shaking people’s hands. As he shook mine, he said to me, ‘I had better not go to much further I might not get back in time’. He then walked his way back shaking hands on the opposite aisle.

Before leaving the Cathedral, we went to see the Easter Garden that the flower ladies had been creating during our visit the previous day. We once again met the Bishop and also the newly installed Dean as we headed out of the Cathedral into the sunshine.

We hopped in our car which was parked in the hotel car park, right next to the Cathedral. Our destination was Bucklers Hard which is a short walk down the river from Beaulieu. When we arrived, we had lunch in the Captain’s Table tea shop before visiting the museum.

The Museum documents the history of the 18^th century shipbuilding in the village of Bucklers Hard. Bucklers Hard is famous as a naval ship building centre. Warships for Nelson’s Navy were built there. The Museum also displays village life in the 1800s and how village life changed in the 19^th and 20^th century from lively shipbuilding activities to sleepy rural hamlet.

We then walked down to the harbour visiting the open house and church along the way. We arrived at the harbour shortly before a boat tour of the river was due to start. There were only six of us on the trip so we were able to see the views on both sides of the river, the captain highlighting points of interest along the way.

We had just enough time to briefly visit the exhibition of archaeology which displays items that were found during an excavation of the boatyard. We watched a video but the exhibition closed before we could fully explore the exhibits.

We freshened up and relaxed in our room, which had been serviced (no biscuits!) before dining in Chesil Rectory. The food was excellent and every bit as good as I remembered it when we last visited over 10 years ago. We both had duck as our main course and shared a rhubarb frangipane dessert.

It being Sunday the Crown and Anchor was closed so we returned to the hotel for a nightcap. It was quiet in the bar although there was a noisy group in the restaurant area.

After a while I heard the barman say ‘I think I can close the bar in 15 or 16 minutes. After about 10 minutes he told us he was closing the bar and that we were welcome to take our drinks to our room. So we asked him for another glass of wine to take to the room and were advised that the bar was already shut. Mr C said ‘I didn’t hear you call last orders’ and I asked if we could order a glass via room service. The response was ‘no we don’t do that any more the bar is a separate company from the hotel. Sorry Guys.’ He clearly wasn’t sorry at all and couldn’t have cared less!

We promptly left, both of us feeling underwhelmed by the experience.

The work ‘chesil’ is in fact a derivation of ‘Cheeshill’ which in turn heralds back from the Anglo-Saxon word ceosel, meaning ‘gravel’. Chesil Street’s origins go back to the time King Arthur. Once know as ‘Cheese House’ the timber framed building is situated in a very prominent position, directly at the foot of what was then the only road to London. The Chesil Rectory, built between 1425-1450, is the oldest commercial property in Winchester & is one of the city’s best preserved medieval buildings. Built by a wealthy merchant, the right hand side of the building was used for commerce, the left hand side a private dwelling.

The front of the building is almost all original apart from the windows which would have been simple wooden bars & shutters. The famous oak doorway is the original entrance & is also where the livestock would have been led through on a stone pathway, from the front to the back of the house. The 2 fireplaces were a later extension in the C16th . Originally, simple vents in the roof would have let out the smoke & the walls & roof space would be blackened & the air quality very poor.

The building was taken by Henry VIII during 1500’s when he disbanded many religious building in England & Wales, know as “the dissolution of the monasteries. He subsequently gave the Chesil Rectory to his daughter, Queen Mary, known as Mary Tudor. Queen Mary’s lavish wedding to King Philip of Spain in 1554 at Winchester Cathedral almost bankrupted the city & as part payment for her expensive wedding celebrations & feast, Mary Tudor bequeathed the Chesil Rectory in 1555 to the City of Winchester. The building continued to be used as a private dwelling & in the late 1700s the house was divided into two tenements, with families living in each side. One family was a shoemaker who, in the large upstairs room, started Winchester’s first Sunday School

During the 1800s the house gradually deteriorated until it was deemed unfit for human habitation & was very nearly demolished by the Council. Fortunately it was bought &  saved by Thomas & Co general stores in 1892 & it was thoroughly restored.

A one-time merchants house, antique shop, tannery, Rectors home, general store & tea rooms, the building housed a number of eateries for the past 50 years.*

The building is now a modern restaurant serving meals using local Hampshire produce.

*From a leaflet provided by Chesil Rectory