AFTER nearly 70 years the Winchester and District Stamp Society has decided to close because of declining interest.

Established in November 1948 by just a handful of members, in the ensuing years it became a thriving society holding regular meetings, exhibitions, speakers, auctions, a stamp exchange and social events.

The society also collected items of postal history relating to the Winchester area.

In recent years the society, as in other towns, suffered from dwindling membership as younger people no longer found philately an interesting hobby.

At the 2017 annual general meeting the remaining members reluctantly agreed to take the decision to wind-up the society in 2018.

But it will not disappear entirely; the Winchester Postal History Collection has been donated to the Hampshire Record Office, where it is hoped that the wider public will be able to gain access to and view the many and various items assembled over the past 70 years.

Gillian Mills (president), Peter Mills (secretary), Robin Pope (treasurer) and Mike Vokes (member) on behalf of the remaining members handed over the Winchester Postal History to Adrienne Allen to the safe keeping of the Hampshire Record Office in Winchester on Thursday May 31.

Two stamp societies do still exist in the Winchester area.

The Worthy Down Stamp Society meets monthly on a Tuesday afternoon during the winter in the Victoria Hall, Sutton Scotney, and the Southampton and District Philatelic Society meets twice a month on a Tuesday evening in Southampton, but also has a thriving Chandler’s Ford section meeting on the second Thursday afternoon of each month.

A Postal History of Hampshire group also exists.