YOU may pass them on a Covid walk without realising what they are. They look like perfectly normal houses – even fine ones – but they were built with unconventional materials. These are the numerous houses made of chalk. There are many examples in Hampshire, especially in and around the Test Valley and between Andover and the Salisbury Plain. They include Rookwood School in Andover, which was built as a fine gentleman’s residence and Thimble Hall, Quarley, originally a pair of cottages. A fine example once stood where the Royal Hampshire County Hospital was extended in the 1980s. Many existing houses in the Orams Arbour and St Cross areas of Winchester are also made of chalk, excavated from local railway cuttings. And yet from the outside you would never know it.
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