Short answers, pulled from the story.
Winchester Cathedral, originally built in 1079, is the longest Gothic cathedral in Europe. It contains the burials of Anglo-Saxon monarchs such as Egbert of Wessex, later rulers including King Canute and William Rufus, and the novelist Jane Austen, who died in Winchester on the 18th of July 1817. The cathedral also once housed the shrine of Saint Swithun and served as a major medieval pilgrimage destination.
In Roman times Winchester was called Venta Belgarum, meaning Venta of the Belgae. It served as the civitas capital of the Belgae tribe and by the latter half of the second century had grown to cover 144 acres, making it among the largest towns in Roman Britain by surface area.
In the late 9th century, King Alfred the Great demolished the old Roman street plan and replaced it with an entirely new grid layout designed to improve defences against Viking attack. The city's first mint also dates from this period of reconstruction.
Winchester College is a public school founded by William of Wykeham in the 14th century while he served as Bishop of Winchester. It is the oldest public school in the United Kingdom still using its original buildings.
John Keats stayed in Winchester from mid-August to October 1819 and during that period wrote Isabella, St Agnes' Eve, To Autumn, Lamia, parts of Hyperion, and the five-act poetic tragedy Otho the Great.
The Buttercross, also known as the City Cross, is a 15th-century monument in the High Street featuring 12 statues of the Virgin Mary, other saints, and historical figures. In 1770 Thomas Dummer bought it intending to move it to Cranbury Park near Otterbourne, but citizens organised a riot to stop the removal. George Gilbert Scott restored it in 1865 and it is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument.