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Published: September 11th 2022
Elton Was Our Charge while in Chichester
easy going, except for deciding to stay out late at night!Our next stop on our tour around the UK was Chichester. We hadn’t heard of it before, but we found that a cat and home needed our help through Trusted Housesitters so why not? We have been very fortunate on our travels to find great homes to stay in, people to meet (either in person or through video chats) and lovely cats to enjoy. This stop was no different. Due to timing, we didn’t get to meet Emma in person, but it worked out fine anyway as received enough information from her to know where to find the key, all the necessary items for the cat and the house and all was good. Here Elton was allowed outside, but there wasn’t a cat door so we just had to make sure he was inside before we left to explore anywhere. During the morning that seemed to be OK, but we found that Elton turned into a night cat and didn’t want to come in very early. That usually isn’t a problem for us as we don’t go to bed early, but… it did make us (OK, it was only me that was nervous) that he wouldn’t come in at night. One
night he definitely didn’t want to come in, but fortunately I did finally find him with my flashlight and he didn’t run away when I went out to the yard to get him. Glad he wasn’t scared of either of us!
As you heard in our last blog entry, we didn’t get to go out to explore the area. Here, we made up for it and were on the go quite a bit. It really is great that it is so easy to find public transportation to places you’d like to see. As a result of all that we saw, I apology now for the length of this blog. Also, with so much information available on the signage I have included many photos with those details to hopefully provide information if you wish to read more.
Chichester of course had its own Cathedral that we could actually see from the window where we were staying. It looked close so walked into town the first day to see what the town had to offer. Roads to it were definitely not in a straight line as we had to weave back and forth quite a bit which gave us a
little longer walk before we even got into town. That normally wouldn’t be bad, but the temperature is still quite hot here in the UK as we know it is in many places.
The Cathedral was founded in 1075 and is a great example of a combination of both Norman and Gothic style architecture. One of its unique traits here in the UK is that of having a free-standing bell tower as well as double aisles in the Cathedral itself. Chichester actually sits on top of a Roman city which is about a meter below the surface. During some of the work being done on the Cathedral over the years they uncovered some of the Roman mosaics and they have kept them that way for visitors to see. They also found a couple of reliefs that were done in 1125 AD, but had been lost for some time as they were uncovered in 1829. Fortunately, this helped preserve them for us to now view. It seems that the towers of the Church have met with numerous disasters such as fires and collapses which of course always meant rebuilding at various times which addresses the question of the various styles
of architecture seen here today.
The next day we planned a trip to visit a couple of places that I had read about. One was a tidal village, Bosham, and the other was the Fishbourne Roman Palace. We could use the same bus route for both stops so that made it easy to plan. As Bosham is tidal, we decided to head there first to see it when the tide was out. It is a charming village with plenty of places for holiday makers to stay, a couple of nice coffee shops, a mill, sailing club, church and plenty of walks. We learned that Bosham was listed in the Doomsday Book of 1086 as one of the wealthiest manors in England at the time. It is believed that King Harold of England in 1066 made Bosham his home. The Bayeaux Tapestry shows him riding to Bosham before sailing to Normandy to meet William, Duke of Normandy. This “sleepy little village” has quite an impressive history as we found out.
There is a lovely mill stream and church here as well. We learned later (as the church was not open) that there has been a church on this site
in Saxon times and the lower part of the tower is still Saxon while the upper part is from the 15
th C.
We have been in tidal areas before, but it is still always amazing to see the number of boats that you see sitting out of the water while they wait for the tide to come in. The weather always is a factor of when you wish to go out on the water with any boat, but in a tidal area, the tides play another major factor that you have to be mindful of. There are some roads here that definitely are flooded over during each tide so as they say in the literature, make sure you know the time of the tides before you park your car on any of those roadways – definitely smart advice! Everywhere you walked you could see the boards in place in front of the doors to protect them from the entry of water, water marks on the sides of buildings as well as seagrass on stairways and roadways showing how high the water reaches. In checking the tide table, it showed that high tide is 4.5 meters (14.7 ft) and a
low of 1.3 meters (4.2 ft) which definitely would make quite a difference in the look of the place. I really would have loved to stay to see it again at high tide, but decided that we would move on to our next place, the Fishbourne Roman Palace. We have been told that this is the largest Roman residence north of the Alps and has been dated unusually early in 75AD, about 30 years after the Roman conquest of Britain.
This is a very large palace and much has been excavated, but there is still more to be uncovered. They know from the research that has been done that extensive changes were made to the palace in the 2
nd and 3
rd C. as many of the black and white mosaics were overlaid with more intricate and colored mosaics. Unfortunately, the palace burned down about 270AD and it was abandoned at that time.
New construction of a home in 1805 led to the accidental discovery of the ruins. At that time, they found 13-foot-wide pavements and numerous columns. After that first discovery, pottery fragments and other mosaics were found by locals living in the area. Even with those finds,
it was not thought to be a part of a large palace. It wasn’t until 1960 when an engineer working for the Portsmouth Water Company found the foundations of a building north of the Roman road that had been found when they were trying to dig a trench for a water main. With this new find, an archeological team started working in 1961 and with subsequent digs, it was found that not only did the Romans live here, but they found many artifacts that proved that there was human activity in this same area as early as 5000-4000 BC showing a hunter/gather society. These discoveries were numerous which included hundreds of pottery fragments and a cup from the Iron Age.
This site is a very large one covering approximately 500,000 square feet which compares to Nero’s Golden House in Rome and is larger than Buckingham Palace. They have very carefully preserved the mosaics under cover as well as recreated one of the formal gardens that would have been here during that time period.
From the extensive research it was determined that first this was the site of granaries to provide supplies for the Roman army conquest in 43
AD. Later two residential homes were built at this location which would have been comfortable places to live, but about 60 AD these homes were taken down and a more substantial palace type building would have been installed here with an elaborate courtyard garden and a bath suite. The full palace wasn’t built until approximately 75-80 AD and would have taken 5 years to complete. They can tell that the palace had 4 wings with elaborate state rooms, bath suites, reception areas and under floor heating system. There were no less than 50 mosaic floors and the garden contained an underground watering system to the fountains located there.
There are numerous theories of who the occupant was of this Roman palace based on the dating of its construction and the political standing of various individuals at the time. They do know as a result of strong evidence that one of the wings was destroyed by fire in 270 AD. What is not clear is if this was accidental or a part of some unrest that was going on at that time. It does appear that in 290 AD the baths in that wing were destroyed. All the objects and
furnishings were destroyed and only the palace walls remained. After this it was decided that it would not be worth rebuilding due to the extent of the damage. Flooding also occurred here as it is close to the sea. Over the years since, people in neighboring areas such as Chichester raided this site for building material using the ground stone foundations elsewhere. The site had been forgotten and buried with a few feet of soil until more recent times as mentioned above.
It is always interesting to think that remodeling of palaces occurred just like we do with homes of today. The archeologists can tell the age of these changes based on the designs, the materials used, and the use of colors in the mosaics. No matter how many of these mosaics we have seen throughout our travels, we are always fascinated by what you can learn from the various designs and stories they tell.
In looking at places to visit while in Chichester, we found that it would be easy enough to get to Portsmouth by bus so our plan was to head there to visit the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. This has been on the list for
quite some time to visit so glad that we are close enough to be able to visit this year. For those that aren’t aware, it is an area of the HM Naval Base that is open to the public which contains several historic ships and buildings. When you buy your ticket to visit, you can choose to enter one, three or all attractions/ships. With only having the day to explore we decided on trying to visit three.
Bob already knew he wanted to visit the HMS Victory so that is the one that we went to as soon as we arrived. We were very glad we did as it is a large ship with lots to see and hear about on the audio recording that you are provided. Early the ship was quite empty which made it easy to get around, but as the day went on, it filled in and did slow your progress a bit.
For those that are not familiar, the HMS Victory was the flagship of Horatio Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, but saw many more battles over the course of its lifetime as a warship. The 104-gun ship was ordered
to be built in 1758 along with 11 others. The keel of Victory was laid down the following year and it was launched in 1765. It survived many battles but then was changed to a harbor ship in 1824. HMS Victory came to rest in dry dock here in Portsmouth in 1922 and has been open to the public to view since that time. In fact, she is the oldest commissioned Royal Navy ship with 244 years of service as of 2022. It took over 150 workmen to construct her using approximately 6,000 trees to provide the oak, elm, pine and fir with the majority being oak. Once the frame was built it was common to have the wood dry out and this was done over a 3-year period. Once launched, it was found that there were a few design flaws, but fortunately the HMS Victory was not needed in battle for a few years. Its first call to duty was as a mobilization effort to deal with any threat from France as they joined the American War of Independence in 1778.
The audio guide on board was excellent and well worth using. At each stop onboard it would
talk about what you were seeing and used the Battle of Trafalgar as a reference when providing details of what would have been happening. We have been on a few historic ships before, but this one was of particular interest due to the length of time of service and the variety of functions it has held over the years from warship. It also explained the Battle of Trafalgar in more detail and Horatio Nelson’s tactics. It has served as a prison, troopship, floating depot, hospital, signal school, emergency headquarters during WWII and now serving Britain as an educational museum since 1922. At one time the Victory was ordered to be destroyed as it would be too expensive to repair, but there was a public outcry to save here back in 1831 due to its role in the Battle of Trafalgar and that of Horatio Nelson.
There were a few things we noted of interest. Horatio Nelson’s office was in the stern of the ship and was quite sparsely furnished. On the walls there were large loops that would be used for the fastening of cannons and the walls all had hinges that would allow them to be removed easily.
As the stern of the ship with its numerous windows was the most vulnerable, the captain’s office would quickly be transformed with numerous cannons rolled in to protect this part of the ship. As the audio mentioned, many times in these cases, the furniture would be tossed into the sea as it was more important to quickly transform the area from an office to an area with armaments for protection. I tried to show this area in the photos. Next to Nelson’s office, his bed was located right next to a cannon which stood ready to be put into action. A note about Nelson’s bed – it was different from any of the other officers, at it was designed to be easier for him to get in and out of as he only had one arm.
The second ship we learned about was the HMS Mary Rose that was a warship of King Henry VIII that served in that capacity for 33 years in wars against France, Scotland and Brittany. She was one of the earliest sailing vessels built as warship having the addition of gun-ports which was a new idea that changed the type of battles by now
Notice The Different Type of Arches
showing the different styles over time being able to fire broadside. She was launched in 1511 and unfortunately sunk in 1545 while fighting the French. The hull that you see now was salvaged in 1982 after being located in 1971. They were able to save approximately 1/3 of the hull based on how it was buried. It had been found in 1836 by accident when fishermen nets caught on some exposed timbers. This information helped in its location later. It was a very complex recovery, but has provided great insights of the time due to the preservation of so many artifacts onboard. Not only the armaments, but so many of the personal belongings and tools that were onboard were preserved due to them being buried for so long. They found complete sets of tools for the various trades people on board that were necessary for the maintenance of the ship, games that the crew would play while off duty and even a few pieces of clothing from some of the crew. They did mention that the complexity of recovery of the hull of the Mary Rose was comparable to that of the raising of the Vasa which we saw when in Sweden a few years ago.
With the Mary Rose, there are numerous theories about why she sank, but there is no definite answer to that question. One point that does come up often is that the addition of the gun-ports may have been a cause due to possible flooding through the openings.
There had been previous attempts to raise the Mary Rose, even as early as a few days after it sank. Over the years there have been a few attempts, some that actually did damage to the hull unfortunately. It was also common practice for any recovery operation to sell off any items found to help fund the salvage operation. Thankfully a new law in 1973 in the UK prevented this from that point on. As a result, the displays provided in the museum provided a wonderful snapshot of the work the crew on the HMS Mary Rose did and their belongings at the time.
Bob had hoped to get onto the HMS Warrior which was an iron-hulled warship launched in 1860, however, the day we went it was closed to the public. It actually was just as well, as we had taken almost the full day just wandering through and learning
about the HMS Victory and HMS Mary Rose.
There was a display of figureheads from numerous ships with some of the explanations behind the symbols or designs on them. We have been amazed by many that we have seen, but to be able to see them up close you could really appreciate the detail that went into them.
The HMS M33 was also on display but we didn’t take the time to get onboard. This was a ship built in 1917 and saw action in the Mediterranean during WWI and then again in Russia during the Allied invasion in 1919. It is only one of three surviving British warships from WWI and it had been constructed in less than seven weeks. It was designed as a floating gun platform and has a shallow draft in order to be able to get close to shore. She has been at the Historic Dockyard since 1997 where conservation efforts have been used to maintain here for others to see.
The tickets to visit the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard are definitely not inexpensive, but they are good for 12 months from the date of first use. We will be sure to hold
on to those tickets, just in case another trip to the Portsmouth area pops up in our future!
Sorry for the length and details in this blog, but we did seem to make up for the lack of explorations during the last week. This stop in Chichester definitely was an excellent one as there was so much to see.
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