If you were thinking of moving to Winchester this time last year but didn't do anything about it, you might be left kicking yourself...
Beautiful architecture, charming shops, great schools, fabulous surrounding countryside, superb road and rail connections… We’re huge fans of Winchester here at Country Life, and it seems everyone else is too. The Hampshire city has experienced house price growth of 9.2% in 2024, the highest rise in the country.
A home buying company called House Buyers for You has crunched numbers from HM Land Registry, finding that the average cost of a property in Winchester has gone from £463,068 in 2023 to £504,693 today. Two spots in N0rthern Ireland — Newry and Armagh — were second and third on the list of palces with highest rises, at 8.9% and 7.6% respectively, while Wolverhampton was fourth at 7.5% and Bradford fifth at 7.2%.
So what does the Winchester average of £504,693 buy you as of December 2024?
Really not that much, to be honest, at least near the city centre. Here’s a £485k terrace house via Belgarum, for example.
But if you venture away from the city and head into the surrounding areas, you’ll get more country life for your buck. Take this charming-looking cottage in Sutton Scotney, on the market at exactly £500k.
Quiz of the Day
1) What is the name of the inlet between Norfolk and Lincolnshire?
2) Who is said to have referred to the English as a nation of shopkeepers?
3) Which motorway connects London and Swansea?
4) What was David Bowie’s real surname?
5) What sort of tree produces filberts?
Available in any colour you like, as long as it’s pink
You don’t have to read James Fisher’s piece on the new look of Jaguar. But if you do, you’ll be glad you did.
And the word of the year is… oh, what was it again?
The Oxford English Dictionary’s ‘word of the year’ has been announced: brain rot. Unlike most recent winners — not least ‘rizz’ from 2023 — it’s a word with a long history, having been first recorded in in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden: ‘While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?” wrote the great American man naturalist and essayist.
The term ‘increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024’, according to the OED, thanks to its regular use to describe what happens when people devour a constant diet of TikTok videos and inflammatory Tweets. All that’s left is to point out the elephant in the room: surely, given that brain rot is two words rather than one, it should be ‘phrase of the year’ rather than ‘word of the year’? Perhaps there’s a bit of brain rot floating around the OED offices…
The season of giving comes to the cinema
A nice initiative from Showcase Cinemas: make a food bank donation this Saturday and you’ll get free entry to special showings of a kid-friendly Christmas film, The Magic Reindeer: Saving Santa’s Sleigh. We’d not heard of it either, but The Guardian gave it three stars — and it seems a nice way to jog people into remembering to donate at this time of year.
And finally…
Flapjacks for Dogs. Yes, really. They’re made a company called Flapjackery, and area apparently gluten-free, and in a scrumptious Banana and Honey flavour.
That’s it — we’re all done for today
Quiz answers
1) The Wash
2) Napoleon Bonaparte
3) M4
4) Jones
5) Hazel
