Research by Clive Rogers (current owner).
This house has an internal Tudor wall, but the timber framework within the roof void reveals that that this would originally have been external. The roof timbers at the southern end of the property appear to be a later addition during the “Georgification” of the street. A fireplace was installed in this room with a tall chimney stack, later demolished.
This is a farmhouse built on an ancient burgage plot, and is the last remaining house on Westgate to keep its medieval orientation at right angles to the highway. Unlike the Georgian properties rebuilt on the Southside after the Civil War demolitions, which need a step up from street level, the floor of this original building is below the present street level at the northern end. Another indication of its great age.
In the 1720 deeds it is described as “Messuage, backside and garden in ‘the Parish of St. Bartholomew without the Westgate’ of Chichester”.
In 1746, the words “but now with a wash house” are added to the deeds – which is probably the room with the fireplace at the southern and the house “Georgianised”.
Residents 1720-1907
Pre 1720 William Grigg of Chichester, gent
1720 Sold to Charles Collins* of Kensington (co. Middx), gent. For the sum of eighty-three pounds
1746 5th May, bequeathed to William Collins ** (nephew). Poet and son of William Collins of Chichester, hatter and haberdasher, Alderman, and Mayor in 1714 and 1721
1746 10th October, sold to William Milton
1765 Sold to Nicholas Roberts, merchant
1773 Bequeathed equally to Nicholas Roberts’ two sons, Francis and Henry, and his two daughters Frances and Hopestill, as Tenants in Common
1781 Sold to James Harvey, brazier, wine merchant, and Mayor of Chichester
1792 Sold to James Dunscumbe, brewer. After his death the property passes to his widow, Sarah Dunscumbe
1812 Sarah marries George White, wheelwright
1859 Sarah White (widow of George)
1866 Bequeathed to Harriet Cobden (spinster)
1872 Harriet marries Francis Alfred Till-Smith, carpenter and joiner
1907 Harriet Till-Smith dies
*NOTE – Charles Collins was the elder son of Roger Collins and was baptised in the cathedral c.1665/6. He was admitted there to be a lay clerk in 1683 and Epistolary on 5th May 1685.
**-The poet William Collins
William Collins was born on Christmas Day 1721, at a house in East Street, demolished in 1927 when a branch of National Provincial bank was built on the site. There is a plaque on the wall of what is now the Halifax.
Aged 25, Collins inherited the property in Westgate from his uncle but is not thought to have lived in the property in the short five months of his ownership. He had raised money on the sale to relieve, at least temporarily, his usual financial straits; though it did enable him also to enjoy a trip through Holland!
Collins died aged 39, but was an important poet of the middle decades of the 18th century, second only in influence to Thomas Gray. His sad end, according to some early sources, was brought about by drunkenness and insanity; although modern doctors and literary scholars have cast some doubt on this. The last five years of his life were spent mainly in the care of his elder sister and her clergyman husband, who lived within the cathedral precincts. He is buried in St Andrew-in-the-Oxmarket Church, behind where he lived and which is now the Oxmarket Gallery.
There is a fine memorial to William Collins in Chichester cathedral, designed by the sculptor John Flaxman, and “erected by voluntary subscription”. It bears an epitaph by William Hayley.
In 1975, there was a William Collins Exhibition held at 11 Westgate as part of the “Muses and Memories” exhibition for Chichester 900, celebrating the 900th anniversary of the founding of Chichester Cathedral. This was organised by John Gibson, a consultant at St Richard’s Hospital who was the resident at the time and some 168 people attended the exhibition between 16th June and 11th July 1975.
Presumably, 11 Westgate is the last surviving house in Chichester with any connection to William Collins the poet.