SHIONE Carden was born in Calcutta in 1934, as the younger of two sisters, where her father worked as a mechanical engineer.

On the outbreak of war the family returned to their relatives in Northern Ireland before moving to Derby when her father was appointed by the government to join a large engineering works. She finished her education locally and at Penhrose College, before employment at the Foreign Office from 1952. In London she met and married Michael Carden in 1957, during his final year as an architectural student, and typed his undergraduate thesis in 1960 while nursing their first child, Matthew. Their second child, Melanie was born in Reigate in 1962, where they had moved when Michael was employed in a small local practice.

They moved to Winchester in 1967 where he joined the office of Wilfrid Carpenter Turner, the Cathedral Architect, that later became Burford, Marlow and Carden, and eventually the present Radley House Partnership, based on St Cross Road, from which he retired as senior partner in 1999.

Shione quickly came to love Winchester, becoming a member the Preservation Trust later renamed the City of Winchester Trust, of which she was appointed a trustee reorganising and chairing the Trust’s Planning Appraisal Group so that it became the highly responsible organisation that monitors and comments on all the planning applications in the city, retiring from the role after 20 years.

As her children grew up she also worked for the veterinary practice close to their home of 51 years, in Edgar Road, and for Debrett Ancestry Research in Alresford. Once the children left home she also obtained a diploma (top of class) in environmental science at Southampton University Adult Education Department. On their recommendation she then took a degree in Science and Technology with the Open University. This period of her life included the Southampton University field trips to the canyon areas of Western USA, and, as assistant tutor, to Kenya, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. Holidays that also stand out in their memories were to Indonesia where Michael’s brother was working and, on Michael’s retirement in 1999 to South America for six weeks.

Shione’s energy and enjoyment of life was often remarked upon except between 2010-18 when she was periodically in hospital due to colon fracture followed by, back and hip infections and loss of height that depleted her strength but never her energy and sense of humour. Her sudden death of sepsis on February 4 may be a delayed consequence of this. A private family burial takes place in Winchester on February 26.