Following previous visits in 1845, 1893, and 1980, the BAA is delighted to return to Winchester for the fourth time in 2026. From its early days as Venta Bulgarum, Winchester developed into an important Anglo-Saxon centre under Alfred the Great and subsequently became a heartland of the tenth-century monastic reform. Site of crown-wearings, synods, and parliaments, and home to major monastic houses and scriptoria, the royal treasury, pilgrimage sites, and a mint, it remained a major royal and ecclesiastical city—and so a centre of artistic production—through the post-Conquest period. In more recent times Winchester has become one of the most extensively and systematically excavated cities in the UK and remains replete with important medieval buildings and archaeological remains. The surrounding county of Hampshire is similarly rich with treasures from the Roman period as well as the medieval: royal, military, monastic, and parochial.
Lectures will cover aspects of the city and county’s art, architecture and archaeology from late Antiquity through the early, high, and late Middle Ages. It is anticipated that site visits in the city will take in the Cathedral and Close, the Westgate and the Castle, Wolvesey Palace, Winchester College, and the Hospital of St Cross, amongst others. Whilst much of the conference will be spent exploring Winchester itself, there are also plans to travel out into Hampshire for further site visits, including a half-day visit to Romsey Abbey, and an excursion to Portchester and the Meon Valley.
The conference will be based at the University of Winchester, and further details together with booking forms will be sent to members in February 2026.
For enquiries about content, please contact the convenors: Sophie Kelly (sophie.kelly@bristol.ac.uk) and John Munns (jmm89@cam.ac.uk).
For all other enquiries please contact the Conference Secretary, Kate Milburn (conferences@thebaa.org).