Click on each image for a closer look.
The olde West Gate itself?
According to the caption, looking down West Street in 1782 from outside the walls, or is it? Historians are of the view that this is in fact Eastgate with the City prison on top, demolished in 1783. The other gates were demolished in 1773. However isn’t that building just inside the gate the famous Westgate pinch point? Could they have written in the wrong date by a decade (it looks like a later pencilled addition to the painting)?
Our position in old Chichester
The red area marks the boundary the parish of St Bartholomew without. It stretches from Orchard Street to no 80.
The Church of St Bartholomew without
Without a function since 2014, and given that a century ago the church had spent 20 years being neglected, there was some disquiet as to its future. The building has now been bought however and is operating as a dance school and a community venue.
Eric Gill’s brother Max revived it in 1929, decorating it on the inside and these interiors have been respected.
But demolishing the wedding cake tower over the West door!
For several hundred years there was a Westgate brewer
Here is a selection of beer labels from the last family owner, Henty. Fancy an Old Westgate Ale anyone?
Henty went into business with Constable and here is a survivor of one of their pub trays, on sale on the internet too
And here’s a dray horse, once a popular sight in our street right up to the 50s. Some of our residents will remember.
The horses were kept in what will be our new park, Henty Field.
So where’s that you might ask?
The Brewery office is now Mercers. Yes, one of the biggest employers in Chichester is on our street.
The old railway line
The junction with the old Midhurst line, now Centurion Way, as it was when newly opened. Just look at that clean ballast!
The level crossing as it is now
but the railway house is still standing!
