Our scenic south side

It’s so easy to take for grant­ed what is right under our noses.

Like most every­one else in Clark County, I missed the Sept. 7 Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation walk­ing tour of our beau­ti­ful Thomson Neighborhood on the south­ern edge of down­town. But I didn’t miss Harry Enoch’s Sept. 14 WinCity Voices arti­cle about it — and for that I am grateful.

Harry’s con­cise and fact-filled piece fea­tured an intrigu­ing pic­ture of H.P. Thomson’s 1889 adver­tise­ment for his ambi­tious new devel­op­ment, but what struck me most was Harry’s casu­al obser­va­tion that our city’s first-ever BGT deTour was well-attend­ed — but not by peo­ple from Winchester.

Why, I wondered?

Always thought­ful, Harry char­i­ta­bly spec­u­lat­ed that we absent locals may have been unaware of the event — I know I was — so he help­ful­ly pro­vid­ed a map of the walk­ing tour route (as well as a link to the accom­pa­ny­ing BGT brochure) so we could all ful­ly appre­ci­ate what we had missed.

Filled with regret, I imme­di­ate­ly print­ed out those mate­ri­als and set them aside for “lat­er,” which final­ly rolled around on the last Saturday in October.

It was a warm and sun­lit after­noon when I set out on foot with the map, brochure, and my trusty iPhone cam­era in hand. I began on South Maple Street and wan­dered toward down­town, then pro­ceed­ed back up South Main to Belmont.

Entranced by the vivid fall col­ors, I lin­gered in front of each address, aware but uncar­ing that I looked like a solic­i­tor or a stalk­er. I had seen all 15 prop­er­ties along the route thou­sands of times — I dri­ve or walk by them regularly—but I gained a new appre­ci­a­tion for them that day.

Reading the brochure while stand­ing in front of each prop­er­ty opened my eyes to archi­tec­tur­al details I had nev­er before noticed — things you just wouldn’t see from a mov­ing car or dur­ing a brisk walk.

Taking time to pon­der the his­to­ry of each address brought the struc­tures and their ear­ly inhab­i­tants (many of them movers and shak­ers of late 19^th- and ear­ly 20^th-cen­tu­ry Winchester) to life. It also made me extreme­ly thank­ful for the folks who cur­rent­ly pre­serve and main­tain these local treasures. 

And because I’m espe­cial­ly attract­ed to beau­ti­ful ruins, I couldn’t resist snap­ping some pho­tos at a cou­ple of the stops. When I got home and uploaded the images onto my com­put­er, I cranked up the col­or sat­u­ra­tion and was delight­ed to expe­ri­ence these beguil­ing build­ings in yet anoth­er, slight­ly sur­re­al, dimension.

It’s remark­able what can hap­pen when we slow down and take the time to look —and real­ly see — what’s in front of us. (Playing around with our pho­to app set­tings doesn’t hurt either).

Thanks to Harry’s inspir­ing arti­cle and the BGT, it’s nev­er too late to take your own tour of this pic­turesque part of town. Whether you’re new to Winchester or a native, it’s well worth a clos­er look.