St Bartholomew's CCAC - WESTGATE CHICHESTER

Chichester & St Bart’s: Walls, Gates and a Ditch

This text is about the suburb of St Bartholomew’s Without in the wider context of the development of the City of Chichester. It is drawn from an edited extract of a 1935 publication (details below). As such it has kept a centuries-old way of talking about Chichester where the city walls, gates, ditch and parishes defined our boundaries, untrammelled by the modern changes that not much more than five years later would come finally to disrupt the millennial harmonies of our cityscape.

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The Rebuilding of St Bartholomew’s Church, 1824-32

Following the destruction of the “Round Church of St Bartholomew” by William Waller’s Parliamentarian troops in December 1642, the congregation were without a church for 190 years. Only the burial ground was left but the parish still existed, its vicar and churchwardens remaining in office and the tithes still being collected.

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The Organ of St Bartholomew’s Church

A chance encounter with Alan Thurlow, retired organist of Chichester Cathedral, has enabled us to do some more research into the pipe organ which may still be seen inside St Bartholomew’s church (once we can get access!).

Details of the St Bartholomew’s organ can be found under Survey E00701 on the National Pipe Organ Register (NPOR), which is operated by the British Institute of Organ Studies. The data is highly technical but contains items of interest to residents’ interested in the history of Westgate.

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Chichester & St Bart’s: History of the Municipal Area

Prior to the Norman Conquest of 1066 the municipal area of Chichester is not known.

From the late 9th century, Alfred had founded his network of Saxon burhs. These lay at the centre of Alfred’s reformed military defence system and were distributed at strategic points throughout the kingdom. Many were former Roman towns, the largest of which was Winchester, where the stone walls were repaired and ditches added. Chichester was part of this scheme.

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Westgate in the 17th to 19th Centuries

This article forms the fourth and final one in a series on the archaeology of Westgate and is adapted with their permission from an archaeological desk-based assessment prepared by SLR Consulting Ltd on behalf of Chichester College in 2013. The numbers on the map refer to objects mentioned in the text below that have been found and registered in the Historic Environment Record (HER) for Chichester District.

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Chichester & St Bart’s: The Early Settlement

The extent of Chichester has altered at various times.

The settlement was first established as a winter fort for the Second Augustan Legion under Vespasian (the future emperor) shortly after the Roman invasion in AD 43. Like all Roman walled towns, Noviomagus Reginorum was divided into four quarters by two main roads or streets crossing approximately in the middle of the town. The public baths are beneath West Street, the amphitheatre under the cattle market and the basilica is thought to be beneath the cathedral.

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Medieval Westgate

Image courtesy of Chichester Web. This article forms the third in a series on the archaeology of Westgate and is adapted with their permission from an archaeological desk-based assessment prepared by SLR Consulting Ltd on behalf of Chichester College in 2013. The numbers on the map refer to objects mentioned in the text below that have been found and registered in the Historic Environment Record (HER) for Chichester District.

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Prehistoric Westgate

This article forms the first in a series on the archaeology of Westgate and is adapted with their permission from an archaeological desk-based assessment prepared by SLR Consulting Ltd on behalf of Chichester College in 2013. The numbers on the above map refer to objects mentioned in the text below that have been found and registered in the Historic Environment Record (HER) for Chichester District.

Palaeolithic Period (c 500,000 – c 10,500 BP)

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A brief archaeology of Westgate

This brief article introduces a monthly series of four on the archaeology of Westgate. These four pages may be accessed via the underlined titles. The data has been adapted, with their permission, from the findings of an archaeological desk-based assessment prepared within a 500 metre radius of Chichester College by SLR Consulting Ltd in 2013. Hence the funny box on the maps.

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St Bartholomew Without, Mount Lane (updated)

As its name suggests, and like the “green hill far away”, St Bartholomew is “without a city wall”, in this case ‘without’ Chichester’s West Gate. The Church is designated by Historic England (formerly English Heritage) at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

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