Winchester, town, England
Winchester (wĭn`chĭstər), town (1991 pop. 34,127) and district, county seat of Hampshire, S central England. Winchester was called Caer Gwent by the Britons, Venta Belgarum by the Romans, and Wintanceastre by the Saxons. The town was the capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. Even after the Norman Conquest, when London gradually gained political ascendancy, Winchester remained England's center of learning and attracted many religious scholars. At the time it was also a wool center. Winchester has long held a position of ecclesiastical influence, reflected in its magnificent cathedral; the Norman structure, which replaced a Saxon church, was consecrated in 1093. In the 14th cent. it was enlarged and transformed into the present Gothic cathedral. It is the burial place of Saxon kings and queens and of William of Wykeham, Samuel Wilberforce, Izaak Walton, and Jane Austen. In Winchester are remains of Wolvesey Castle, where Queen Mary I lived in 1554. St. Cross Hospital, founded in the 12th cent., is the setting for Anthony Trollope Trollope, Anthony , 1815–82, one of the great English novelists. After spending seven unhappy years in London as a clerk in the general post office, he transferred (1841) to Ireland and became post-office inspector; he held various positions in the postal..... Click the link for more information. 's The Warden. The Norman castle, where several parliaments met, was damaged by Oliver Cromwell Cromwell, Oliver , 1599–1658, lord protector of England. Parliamentary General
The son of a gentry family, he entered Cambridge in 1616 but probably left the next year.
..... Click the link for more information. 's soldiers; a round table, supposedly of King Arthur, hangs in the Great Hall. Winchester is still a historic cathedral town, virtually untouched by modern industry and construction.
Winchester College, a famed English public school, was founded (1382; opened 1394) by William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, and is still partly housed in 14th-century buildings.
Winchester, cities, United States
Winchester (wĭn`chĕ'stər, wĭn`chĭstər).1 Town (1990 pop. 11,524), Litchfield co., NW Conn., in the Litchfield Hills; settled 1732, inc. 1771. It includes Winsted (1990 pop. 8,254), an industrial center where electrical appliances, machine products, pipe organs, and fishing tackle are manufactured. Many early 18th-century mansions are in Winsted. Of interest are the little red schoolhouse (1815) and the Winchester Historical Society, located in the Rockwell House (1813). Winchester lies at the gateway to the Berkshire Hills, in a region of lakes and mountain laurel.
2 City (1990 pop. 15,799), seat of Clark co., N central Ky.; inc. 1793. The center of a tobacco and livestock area on the edge of the bluegrass country, it has plants making a variety of light manufactures. Henry Clay Clay, Henry, 1777–1852, American statesman, b. Hanover co., Va.
Early Career
His father died when he was four years old, and Clay's formal schooling was limited to three years.
..... Click the link for more information. made his last speech in Kentucky in the old courthouse there. Winchester is the headquarters of Cumberland National Forest.
3 Town (1990 pop. 20,267), Middlesex co., E Mass., a suburb of Boston; settled 1640, inc. 1850. It is chiefly residential.
4 City (1990 pop. 23,365), seat of Frederick co., N Va., in the Shenandoah valley; settled 1732 near a Native American village in Lord Fairfax's domain, inc. as a city 1874. It is the trade, processing, and shipping center for an apple-growing district. Its manufactures include brake linings, tin cans, plastics, furniture, and clothing. George Washington Washington, George, 1732–99, 1st President of the United States (1789–97), commander in chief of the Continental army in the American Revolution, called the Father of His Country.
Early Life
He was born on Feb. 22, 1732 (Feb.
..... Click the link for more information. began his career as a surveyor there in 1748. During the French and Indian Wars French and Indian Wars, 1689–1763, the name given by American historians to the North American colonial wars between Great Britain and France in the late 17th and the 18th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. , Winchester was a center for defense against Native American raids, and Washington, who commanded the Virginia troops, had his headquarters there. Gen. Daniel Morgan Morgan, Daniel, 1736–1802, American Revolutionary general, b. probably in Hunterdon co., N.J. He moved (c.1753) to Virginia and later served in the French and Indian Wars and several campaigns against Native Americans.
..... Click the link for more information. lived in Winchester and is buried in Mt. Hebron Cemetery. During the Civil War, the city suffered severely, changing hands many times. Stonewall Jackson Jackson, Stonewall (Thomas Jonathan Jackson), 1824–63, Confederate general, b. Clarksburg, Va. (now W.Va.), grad. West Point, 1846.
Like a Stone Wall
..... Click the link for more information. headquartered there during the winter of 1861–62, and Gen. Philip Sheridan Sheridan, Philip Henry, 1831–88, Union general in the American Civil War, b. Albany, N.Y. Although not a brilliant general, Sheridan's flair for leadership and his ready fighting ability made him the outstanding Union cavalry commander.
..... Click the link for more information. during the winter of 1864–65. Of interest are the old Presbyterian Church (1790) and the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. In Winchester are Shenandoah College and a music conservatory (1875). The city is the birthplace of Willa Cather Cather, Willa Sibert , 1873–1947, American novelist and short-story writer, b. Winchester, Va., considered one of the great American writers of the 20th cent. When she was nine her family moved to the Nebraska prairie frontier. She graduated from the Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. and Richard E. Byrd Byrd, Richard Evelyn, 1888–1957, American aviator and polar explorer, b. Winchester, Va. He took up aviation in 1917, and after World War I he gained great fame in the air. He commanded the naval air unit with the arctic expedition of D. B. MacMillan in 1925.
..... Click the link for more information. .
Winchester
City and administrative district (pop., 2001: 107,213), central part of the administrative and historic county of Hampshire, England. Initially founded by Celtic peoples, it became important as Venta Belgarum under Roman rule. It was the capital of Wessex and a centre of learning under Alfred the Great; later it was the seat of the Danish king Canute's government. It remained important under the Norman kings until the emergence of London as the sole capital of England late in the 12th century. Winchester is known for its cathedral (11th–14th centuries), Britain's longest (556 ft [169 m]), and for Winchester College, founded in 1382.
Winchester
| (hardware) | winchester - An informal generic term for floating head
magnetic disk drives in which the read-write head planes
over the disk surface on an air cushion. The name arose because the original 1973 engineering prototype for what later became the IBM 3340 featured two 30-megabyte volumes; 30--30 became "Winchester" when somebody noticed the similarity to the common term for a famous Winchester rifle (in the latter, the first 30 referred to caliber and the second to the grain weight of the charge). |
Winchester, VA 22601
Phone: (540) 667-5770
Fax: (540) 545-8711
www.ci.winchester.va.us
In northern VA, in the Shenandoah Valley, 70 mi. northwest of Alexandria. Settled 1738; established in 1752. Incorporated as a town in 1779; as a city in 1874. Serves as county seat for Frederick County. Name Origin: Named by James Wood, one of the town founders, for Winchester, England, his birthplace. Previously called Opequon, Frederick's Town, and Fredericktown.
Area (sq mi): 9.33 (land 9.33; water 0.00). Pop per sq mi: 2692.30.
Pop 2005: 25,119. State rank: 64. Pop change: 2000-20005 6.50%; 1990-2000 7.50%. Pop 2000: 23,585 (White 79.40%; Black or African American 10.50%; Hispanic or Latino 6.50%; Asian 1.60%; Other 5.80%). Foreign born: 6.80%. Median age: 35.20.
Income 2000: per capita $20,500; median household $34,335; Pop below poverty level: 13.20%. *Personal per capita income 2000-2003: $27,238-$28,791.
Unemployment 2004: 3.20%. Change from 2000: 0.20%. Median travel time to work: 20.10 minutes. Working outside county of residence: 49.10%.
Cities with population over 10,000:
 (24,779) |
See other counties in Virginia.
Winchester
a city in Great Britain, located in Hampshire, in the Itchen River valley. Population, 87,000 (1973). In the Middle Ages, Winchester was known for its large-scale wool industry. Today its population consists mainly of older people. The city retains traces of the regularly laid out Roman streets and medieval city blocks. Architectural landmarks include the city’s cathedral, which is mainly Gothic and dates from the 11th—14th centuries; the Hospital of St. Cross, with its Romanesque-Gothic church, dating from the 12th—13th centuries; and the Winchester College complex in English Gothic Perpendicular style, dating from 1387–95. The city also has some 19th-century neo-Gothic buildings.
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