Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

CHICHESTER.

15

of them intervening." The present spire was completed in 1866.

We have said that there is much in Chichester to arrest attention besides the cathedral. Its walls are built upon Roman foundations, and at the intersection of the principal streets is the Market Cross, erected in the reign of Henry VIII., but altered in that of Charles II. at the expense of Buckingham. The belfry was the gift of Dame Farrington in 1724, and she also presented the clock. Then there is the extremely interesting mediaeval hospital of St. Mary, at the end of Lion Street, of which we show the hall or refectory.

The circumstances under which the hospital was originally founded are obscure, but there is an episcopal mandate, dated early in the fifteenth century, for its consecration. In all probability the greater part of the present building is of this date. It will be noticed that the hall possesses an exceedingly fine timber roof, spanning both nave and aisles; the latter are filled with the apartments of the occupants of the hospital. At the end of the hall, and screened off from it, is the chapel, with interesting stalls and a piscina. Like many another such foundation, doubt seems to have arisen, at the time of the suppression of the chantries and similar religious foundations in the reign of Edward VI., as to the exact nature of St. Mary's Hospital, and whether or not it was liable to suppression. This doubt was settled in 1562 by the drawing up of a new constitution for the hospital, which made it, to all intents and purposes, an almshouse, and such it remains at present.

SECTION II

SOUTH-WEST SUSSEX.

[graphic]

BOXGROVE: BOSHAM: ARUNDEL:

AMBERLEY: PARHAM.

THREE and a half miles northeast of Chichester stand the ruins of the Benedictine Priory of Boxgrove, founded in the year 1117 by Robert de Haya. The house was attached to the Norman abbey of L'Essay, and, like other alien priories in England, was often seized by the crown on the outbreak of a war with France. After a time, however, it was made denizen, and, free from the influence of external strife, quickly rose to great prosperity, being possessed at its dissolution in 1542 of revenues amounting to £3,000 a year!

It is not certain if in the ruins that now stand we have any part of the original structure, though the fragment of an entrance to the Chapter House from the cloister is obviously of an early date, and might well belong to the first quarter of the twelfth century. This fragment consists of three round-headed arches, two of them divided into sub-arches by a massive shaft.

Fifty yards or so from the ruins stands the parish church, and it is unquestionably one of the finest ecclesiastical buildings of

C

which Sussex can boast. The tower shown in the sketch is part of the original Norman church, and was, when erected, central. The transepts, of which we see the south, belong to the same date as does a portion of the nave; but the church underwent a considerable extension westward during the Transitional period. Many objects in the interior deserve special notice, and we recommend to the reader's attention an excellent account of the

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

Priory and Church by the Rev. J. L. Petit and Rev. W. Turner, published in 1861.

To reach Bosham of which a view is here given the reader must retrace his steps to Chichester, from which it is distant four miles in a westerly direction. Trains run frequently between Chichester and Bosham, which is now but a tiny fishing village, situated on a creek of Chichester Harbour. But this tiny village has a history as eventful as any in the county. Here are traces of an important Roman occupation; here the South Saxons first

« PoprzedniaDalej »