Winchester Cathedral

Winchester was the capital of Wessex and then of England, and the cathedral, begun in 1079, is the longest medieval church in Europe at 170 metres, a length that comes from a Norman nave later recased in Perpendicular Gothic by William of Wykeham rather than rebuilt. It holds the Winchester Bible, a twelfth-century illuminated manuscript in four volumes, and mortuary chests said to contain the bones of pre-Conquest kings including Cnut, though analysis in the 2010s found them jumbled and mixed. Jane Austen is buried in the north aisle under a slab that does not mention that she wrote. The building sits on peat and was sinking; between 1906 and 1911 a diver, William Walker, worked six hours a day in darkness underwater packing bags of concrete beneath the foundations, and is credited with saving it.

What you actually see

• The Winchester Bible - a twelfth-century illuminated manuscript in the library.
• The Norman crypt - flooded much of the year, holding an Antony Gormley figure.
• The mortuary chests - bones of Saxon and Danish kings, jumbled and analysed.
• Jane Austen's grave - a floor slab in the north aisle, silent about her novels.

When to go

Year-round; the crypt floods in winter and the Gormley statue stands in water, which is the more striking version. Evensong is sung most days. The tower tour runs in the warmer months.

Honest expectations

Entry is charged for what is a working cathedral, which surprises some. The crypt is inaccessible when flooded and viewed from a gate. The Bible is shown a volume at a time and pages are turned rarely.

Nearby

Winchester's high street and the Great Hall with its Round Table are minutes away; the South Downs Way starts here.