A Chichester History 

Chichester is the only city in Sussex and owes its existence entirely to the Romans. There is no evidence of any form of a major settlement in the area before their arrival. The local iron age people lived in farmsteads rather than towns, although they were organised and there is evidence of considerable trade with the Mediterranean before the Roman invasion. In A.D. 40 Verica was their leader in the early part of the first century but lost control and fled to Rome to ask for support.

Roman Occupation

In A.D.43 the Roman Second Legion landed at Fishbourne and set up camp. The Regni were a subtribe of the Atrebates, who were a peace-loving people and there is no report of fighting when the Romans arrived. Later under the command of Vespasian the army marched inland probably along the track, which was to become Westgate. They set up a winter camp on the flat plain just before the first undulations of the South Downs. Many historians suggest that it was near the winterbourne, which we now call the Lavant river. However, before the Lavant was diverted in the 9th century the nearest it passed to the camp was about a kilometre away, so this seems unlikely. It is possible that this was the site of an existing Regni farmstead, which would have had at least one well, although evidence for this has never been found. The Romans fortified the camp with a ditch and an earth and wooden wall. Tiberius Claudius Togidubnus (possibly related to Verica), who had probably also been to Rome and been granted Roman citizenship, appears to have welcomed the Romans and as a reward was installed as a client king. Over the next few years, he built a large palace at Fishbourne. 

The Roman second legion only stayed a few years, but the camp grew into a town known as Noviomagus Reginorum. Noviomagus is the name of a number of settlements found across the Western Roman Empire. The name is believed to be a Latinization of a Brittonic placename, Novio meaning ‘New’ and -magos, meaning a clearing in woodland, which came to mean ‘marketplace’. The Reginorum is the Latin, genitive plural of Regni meaning ‘of the Regni’. “The New Marketplace of the Regni”. The town was laid out on a grid with the main streets North and South Street, East and West Street, which crossed in the centre of the town and where they met the wall there was a gate. We are interested in the West Gate or more particularly what happens outside it. The first thing was a Roman Cemetery, now under the garages of the “Georgian Priory”. The road, outside leading to Fishbourne, became known as Westgate. A rather poor industrial suburb with the same name grew up along the road. 

A Period of Construction

The stone wall was probably first built in the 2nd Century and later reinforced with 36 Bastions to house soldiers with catapults and cross bows. The current wall most probably follows the original position, but it has been rebuilt at various times so that none of the Roman stonework is evident today. The wall would have been over six foot thick with a ditch running around it.

The Roman city contained an amphitheatre built in AD80 (just outside the wall in the small park near Whyke Lane), public baths (located in what is now Tower Street in the northwest quadrant near the Novium Museum), a Forum in the centre of town; and there is a Roman townhouse, the footprint of which has survived in Priory Park, as it had never been built upon. At that time wealthy Romans lived in some comfort, with underfloor heating and glass in the windows, piped water and a sewage system.

With the decline of the Roman empire and departure of the garrison in about 409, the town still remained occupied, albeit with a smaller population. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the year 477, records that ‘this year Aella and his three sons, Cymen, Wlencing and Cissa came to the land of Britain with three ships.’ Saxons called a group of Roman buildings a ‘ceaster’ and Aella named it after his youngest son, thus referring to it as Cissa’s ceaster. This evolved into Cisscester or Cicestre and eventually Chichester. The Saxons, under Alfred the Great, developed Chichester into one of their largest fortified burghs (towns), making full use of the Roman walls. This was just as well, as in 894 the Danes attacked the City and the surrounding area; but they were successfully defeated, emphasising the strength of this fortified town.

After the Norman invasion of 1066, all of the Haws (building sites) in Chichester, and the manors to which they were attached, were granted to the Earl of Shrewsbury (and later to Roger de Montgomery) with the earldom of Arundel. It was at this time that the motte and bailey were built. The remains of the motte can still be seen in Priory Park today. The mound you see there would have been three times as high, with the fort situated on top with a ditch around it and the Bailey or surrounding ground fortified with its own wall. The footprint of this was exactly the size of the existing Priory Park, and it was within its area that the accommodation and support services for the defenders were situated. A Norman wall and ditch have recently been excavated in the park (2025) where other remains may exist; because this is the only area inside the city walls which has not had to endure multiple rebuilding over the years. 

By the time of the Domesday Book (1086), Cicestre consisted of 300 dwellings and approximately 1500 people. The city prospered by the Cathedral being moved from Selsey to Chichester. This was completed in 1108 under Bishop Luffa. However, a number of fires occurred during the 12th century. The first of them occurred in 1114, when the city and cathedral were burnt; the second was in 1160, when the Marketplace was consumed; and the last in 1187, when the city and cathedral were again burnt. Many collections of deeds show how property was changing hands at this time, probably as a result of the fires. 

In 1121 Henry I granted Chichester to his second wife Adeliza. It must have remained then in the hands of the crown, since in 1155 Henry II granted two Charters directly to the citizens and in later years, various grants and deeds saw the city ownership move between the crown and privileged individuals. These included the Bishops of Chichester, the Earl of Cornwall, the Earl of Kent and individuals favoured by the monarch. For example, in the 13th century, ownership of the southeastern part of Chichester known as the Palatine (and later Pallant) was handed to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

In John’s reign, Chichester was a borough selected for one of the Mints, newly opened or reopened for the issue of the reformed coinage of the year 1205. After a very brief spell, it closed permanently in the year 1207. An interesting background of documentary evidence remains of his short period of activity. Three writs of the year 1205 bear reference to the coinage of Chichester. The mint receives its last mention in a writ of October 1207, when ‘moneyers’ of all mints were summoned to attend at Westminster with their dies and to bring with them operatives and others qualified to advise upon coining. The inquiry was perhaps occasioned by one of the outbursts of forgery which frequently accompanied the issue of a new coinage. Whatever its cause, its result was the closure of some mints, among them Chichester, which never again took part in production of the royal coinage. 

Edward I paid several visits to Chichester and spent some days in the city at the time of the translation of St. Richard in 1276. He seems to have had a special veneration for St. Richard, and came repeatedly in 1281, 1285, 1286, 1290, 1294, 1297 and 1299 while sending regular offerings to his shrine in the cathedral. In December 1305 he sent a gold buckle “in the name of the lord Richard the King’s son, being still in his mother’s womb”. However, when the child was born, it proved to be a girl!

Few records survive on the extent to which the city suffered from recurrent attacks of the plague in there 14th century, known as the Black Death but we do know the City survived. In 1501 Bishop Storey gave the market Cross to the City, which still stands proudly today at the cross roads designed in the heart of the City by the Romans. It was gifted an act of charity, designed to provide shelter from the weather for poorer individual traders on market days.

There is much evidence to show the impact of the Reformation on Chichester. By the time of this religious upheaval, Bishop Sherburne of Chichester was nearly eighty. Although he proclaimed the king’s new religious supremacy in June 1535, he begged to be excused from any active policy, ‘considering his age and impotency’. The two orders of Friars in Chichester surrendered to the king in October 1538. There were no other monastic foundations, and consequently the city did not receive as severe a setback as most large towns, the cathedral and its foundations being left untouched, except for the destruction of the shrine of St. Richard and the suppression of numerous chantries. The hospitals of St. Mary and St. James also escaped confiscation and were reformed and remodelled by Queen Elizabeth 1. 

An anonymous petition in 1596 gives an insight into the state of the city at that time. According to this document there was an abundance of poor people living in the city, leading to decay and general disrepair, with theft being commonplace. As a result, trading in the city had declined significantly. 

Following the outbreak of the Civil War, William Cawley, the MP for Midhurst issued what is known as “The Valiant Resolution” on 16 August 1642, which declared the City’s will to support Parliament against the King. This was unofficial however, and the Mayor, Robert Exton, countered by issuing a Royal Commission of Array. This called upon all able-bodied men to take up arms for the King. Exton then fled to the King and left it to his successor, William Bartholomew, and 200 men of the Sussex militia. The Governor of Portsmouth, Sir William Lewis, reinforced this military presence by issuing seven guns and ten barrels of powder to the Cicestrian Royalists in the November. The site of the City’s powder store can still be seen today under the East Walls, at its junction with Priory Road. Cawley and his supporters were driven from the city in mid-November by Edward Ford of Harting, who had been nominated by the king earlier that year as High Sheriff of Sussex and who now raised a small army. On the 18th of November Parliament ordered him to be apprehended. 

The Siege of Chichester

In December 1642 the Puritan army, under the command of General Waller, attacked the City. Waller’s forces arrived outside Chichester on 21st December 1642 and spent the day constructing battering rams. Following approval from Sir Arthur Haselrig, Bt. (Waller’s second in command who had been a leading member in parliament), Waller called for the Royalist garrison’s surrender through means of parley. After much debate, the garrison refused; but did offer to hand over any Roman Catholics within the city walls. It is not known if this order was executed.

The Parliamentarians opened fire on the 22nd. Waller’s plan, from his encampment on the Broyle, was to seize first the north defences, then the east and west, and so enclose the city. An initial sortie through the North Gate failed, but after seven days a plan was made to attack the city from all sides, including setting fire to the West Gate.

Waller, in spite of some damage by the town ordnance, mounted his batteries to the north and again called upon the garrison to surrender. He took the suburbs on the west, but the defenders set fire to the houses on the north side of Westgate and he was driven back by the resulting “wild-fire.” From Cawley’s Almshouses the Parliamentary troops shot through the North Gate to the Marketplace. A small force was then quartered at the South Gate, but not without “warm skirmishes.” Heavy fighting took place in the eastern suburbs, and they fell to the Parliamentarians. From St. Pancras Church, Waller’s troops fired upon the town from the tower of the church, which collapsed under the weight of the cannon.

The plan was to set fire to the West Gate and to ‘petard’ the Postern Gate by the deanery: that is, to attach a small explosive charge to it with a slow fuse, which then had to be lit – if this exploded before the lighter could run clear it was known as “being hoist by your own petard”. This gate led out of the Deanery through the city walls into the Dean’s orchard and fields but was walled up only a single thickness of brick. The old Deanery, which in spite of protests in the Middle Ages had been built against one of the bastions of the wall, was apparently destroyed by Waller’s guns.

However, before the concerted assault took place, the City surrendered on terms of ‘quarter and honourable usage’. But not before the poorer suburbs of St. Bartholomew and St. Pancras had almost been destroyed. Ford, commanding the Royalist resistance, surrendered the City to Waller on the 29th of December 1642. Despite this, Waller’s troops then proceeded to sack and desecrate Chichester Cathedral. The cathedral clergy were reduced to poverty, the bishop’s palace was sold, and the bishop himself retired into seclusion, until he was able to resume his see at the Restoration. 

Using his wife’s influence with her brother, General Henry Ireton, Edward Ford – the High Sheriff of Sussex and commander of the defenders – was able to obtain an early release, leave, and be knighted for his valiant efforts by Charles I at Oxford on 4th October 1643. While Waller went on to capture more places in our region such as Farnham, Winchester, Basing and Arundel.

Westgate suffered terribly from this brief episode

The north side was burnt down by the defenders and buildings on the south side were demolished to give the artillery a clear line of fire over the city walls into the city. The wooden Church of St Sepulchre’s on Westgate – “The Round Church”, in what is now the churchyard of St Bartholomew’s – was also burnt down. It took 200 years for the church to be replaced.

The rebuilt St Bartholomew’s Church (finished 1832) complete with its tower, later removed by Max Gill during repairs in the 1920s. 

Parts of two domestic properties on the south side of the street did survive. These are today’s no 19, a Tudor brick and timber property which had its top storey removed to stop obstructing the line of fire. Evidence of this can be seen from the external wall visible in the gap between nos. 19 and 21. No 11 is also an ancient property, the only one surviving on Westgate with its medieval street alignment end-on to the highway and a lower floor level than its neighbours. This too has extant brick and timber, these days only visible from inside the property. The house may have suffered the same fate of decapitation as no 19 or could possibly have survived because it was a squat farmhouse sitting on a lower street level. The earlier building sits inside a later Georgian shell extended to the rear.

The rebuilding of Westgate was slow to get organised. It is for this reason that the streetscape on the south side dates mostly from the 18th Century whilst opposite, on the north side and despite the fire, one can tell from the roof lines that there are many earlier properties that have been rebuilt. Thatched roofs were later tiled and facades refaced and possibly extended forward during the following century, by an opulent Georgian society. This side of the street is an almost intact pre-Georgian row and forms a ‘protected view’ within the Chichester Conservation Area.

Chichester in the 18th Century: the testimony of James Spershott

The history of Chichester in the early 18th century marks a period of considerable decay. The change is recorded in the memoirs of James Spershott, a member, and later the pastor, of the Chichester Baptist congregation. Spershott (1710 – 1789) notes the “mean appearance” of the city when he was a boy:

“The old low timber-built houses, with shops open to the street, the few new houses with solid brick fronts, of which only four in the East Street had sash-windows, none in West Street and only two or three in North Street”. Little London (possibly called this because Queen Elizabeth 1st on a visit to Chichester had looked into the squalid street and said, “it looks just like London”), ‘now so gay’ was then very dirty, with a few old houses partly underground. The Pallant in general was very old, with only a few good houses, and otherwise full of malt-houses. The wooden cross in the centre of the Pallant had been taken down about 1713 and the Leather Market had long disappeared. The old Corn Market stood on the west side of North Street, the Sheep Market against the wall of the Priory.

The city walls were in broken, ruinous condition, overgrown with ivy, none of the streets paved and the roads outside the gates narrow and difficult. Not more than three coaches, besides the bishop’s, were known in the city, and only one ‘very awkward’ horse-chaise could be hired, from a shoemaker. There was no post-chaise or road wagon to London, and regular communications depended on two sets of packhorses. Forty-five public-houses in the town and suburbs had by 1784 been reduced to twenty-nine.” 

Spershott gives a graphic schoolboy’s picture of “The rough manners of the ‘commonalty’,” with their bull-baiting, wrestling, cudgelling and footballing in the streets; cockfights, dogfights and badger-baiting. ‘Cock-scaling’ took place even in the ‘High Church Lighten’ (i.e., the cemetery of the cathedral church). He notes the changes of fashion in furniture, having watched the solid old pieces of English oak give place to deal dressers, and Norway oak, called wainscot. The ‘higher sort’ esteemed walnut veneering above everything, and the cabinetmakers began to make walnut chairs, mahogany not having yet come into use. Spinning was common in most families, and the making of bread.”

Rebuilding the City

According to Spershott, the process of rebuilding seems to have begun about 1724. The Cross clock was set up by Lady Farrington; the North Walls walk and rampart were levelled, repaired, and beautified by Lord Beauclerk, the city member; and the trees at the East Walls were planted. In 1731 the old Market House and Council Chamber were taken down and the new Council House built. Throughout the century to 1784 Spershott notes the changes, concluding that he must have seen almost the whole city new built or new faced “as if another Cissa had been here.” 

Education was a marked feature of Chichester in the 18th century. In 1702 Oliver Whitby, son of the Archdeacon of Chichester, left property for the foundation of a school “with a particular regard to mathematics and navigation for twelve Church of England scholars from the City or the Sussex parishes of Harting and West Wittering”. The Prebendal School was flourishing and there were several private schools as well. 

Extensive building and improvement schemes marked the end of the 18th and the early 19th centuries. In 1794 the city was newly paved, under an Act of Parliament (1791) which aroused considerable controversy. Ballard states that “the new paving was carried out at the expense of the city members (Thomas Steele and George White Thomas). Hay describes (in 1804) how the gutter or kennel, formerly in the middle of the street, had been transferred to the sides, and the street raised and rounded towards the footpaths. The commissioners further removed all signposts, waterspouts, gutters, sheds, and other encroachments, and thereby greatly added to the elegance and salubrity of the city”.

Sewage

Despite this, Chichester had a rather undesirable reputation for being an unhealthy city. Even right up to the late nineteenth century, risk of death due to disease caused by a totally inadequate sanitary system was a real issue. Deaths from diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid and gastro-enteric fever were much higher than many other cities in the country. This was not surprising as at that time, the city lacked main drainage and cesspits’ contents would often seep through walls and floors. Indeed, the river Lavant, flowing to the south of the city walls was no more than an open sewer. A local surgeon, Dr Nicholas Tyacke, who lived in Westgate, campaigned tirelessly against a local council that for many years opposed investment in a proper sanitary system. It took him over two decades of report writing and campaigning before work started on a sewerage works in Apuldram in 1893. Dr Tyacke died in May 1900 and at the time of his death, was described as the “city’s greatest benefactor”. He is buried in the city cemetery at Portfield. 

Streetlighting

Gas for lighting came in 1823, the Chichester gasworks being built beside the canal basin in Stockbridge Road. Chichester was one of the first towns to have it. However other utilities were slow in being provided, and it was 1874 before mains water was available. Main drainage did not come till 1894. A private company installed electric lighting in the city in 1909 and was taken over by the corporation in 1921.

World War

In the early twentieth century and according to the Kelly Directories of the time, Chichester was a small, busy, market town on the edge of the South Downs, with a population of around twelve thousand people. Despite its provincial appearance, here was a thriving business scene, with a variety of shops and services lining the streets radiating from the central Cross.

The cathedral brought the city national renown and so did the British Army for Chichester was a proud military city. With the Royal Sussex Regiment barracks to the north, soldiers were a regular sight on the streets.

This memorial at the entrance to St Bartholomew’s church records the loss of men from Westgate and Orchard St in the 1914-18 conflict. Sixteen were sacrificed, including Lt. Edward the son of Mr Tyacke at no 3.

Come the Second World War, Chichester was in the front line, surrounded as it was by eight military airfields, including Tangmere, out of which flew heroes such as Douglas Bader and which is now a flying museum. A clever series of decoy sites were developed to deflect German bombers away from the City but in February 1943, Chapel, North and St Martin’s Streets were hit by enemy HE ordnance.

Eighteen people were killed and the new gymnasium at the Oliver Whitby School was demolished, as well as 3 other businesses and 8 houses. The blast continued from behind the school across North Street into the Crooked S where the south facing tiles were blown off the 13th century St Mary’s Hospital. That’s why the area from North Street towards Little London (across what is now known as the M&S car park) contains so many modern buildings.

In 1944 the whole area became a hotbed of activity in the run-up to D Day, and Generals Montgomery and Eisenhower held a preparatory meeting at the Ship (now Harbour) Hotel in North Street.

Richard Brownfield and Colin Hicks 2025

SOURCES 

• Chichester in 1914
• Funtington Parish Magazine, March 2023 by Jeremy Ling 
• The City of Chichester, Historical introduction in ‘A History of the County of Sussex’ Volume 3. ed L.F.Salzman (London 1935) pp82-90. 
• http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol3/pp82-90 
• Second World War Bombing of Chichester by Ken Green, New Chichester Papers no 4 2012