Changing plans at Chichester

A seemingly clever plan to go down to the Chichester Festival Theatre for a day trip with a double bill of plays (The Vortex and 4000 miles) unravelled with the latest round of industrial action. Although we were not looking at a full strike day, the overtime ban resulted in a much reduced service on the Southern network and no trains to Chichester. Making the best of this, we booked a hotel for a couple of nights and devised a last minute plan to visit the local museum and re-visit the Cathedral.

Market Cross, Chichester (1501)

To be perfectly honest, it is never a hardship to spend time in this city. Chichester has some stunning sights, such as the market cross (1501) which still manages to astonish me every time I see it. This is also the last city in the UK to have a cathedral with a detached medieval bell tower, within sight of the market cross.

The nearby Novium museum has a marvellous collection of objects to tell the story of the local area, from the roman bathhouse that the building sits upon to the original King Charles I bust that used to sit on Chichester’s market cross. The collection of objects tracking the social history of the area is quite modest but the exhibits are really well chosen, inviting the curious to look a little closer.

My favourite object in the museum would have to be Municipal Moon, an oil lantern from the late 17th century, used to light the way for the mayor. It is one of just a handful of surviving municipal lanterns and not something I can recall seeing anywhere else. This one last saw use for the opening of Chichester Festival Theatre in 1962.

Chichester Cathedral itself is marvellous, with many exquisite artworks and chapels. Among these are the extraordinary Tudor panel paintings by Lambert Barnard in the North and South Transepts; the Marc Chagall Window; and the Arundel Tomb (c. 1375) which inspired Philip Larkin’s poem ‘An Arundel Tomb’ (1955).

On top of all this, Chichester has some wonderful bakeries and restaurants, which we never quite get around to sampling enough of. In short, it was a pleasure to spend a spell in the city, however unexpected, combined with some excellent plays.

Gallery