Walks in Sussex: Exploring Chichester

hello I'm Richard votes I'm the bald Explorer and I'm on another walk at this time I'm in shitty stir in West Sussex Chichester a very important town or city in fact in West Sussex and I'm starting here on my little walk through the town city by the Roman walls although this bit is actually probably the remade Georgian walls let's let's head off so I'm going to start in east gate and make my way up hopefully to the cathedral and it is actually incredibly busy today I've come on a midweek lunchtime period so we'll weave through the various people who are out enjoying themselves in Chichester just has a very important term as I say city in West Sussex located down on the south of England and it was a very important Roman town now the Roman name of this is novia Magus regi Norum if I've got that correct I may have messed that out but you'll have to forgive me on that so the Romans came in in AD 43 as everybody knows and Chester was strategically a very ideal place for the Romans to set up camp with its close proximity to wealth France or Gaul as it was then known and of course they immediately built a thick wall around the town and you can walk around the Roman walls what's left of them originally they were six and a half feet thick which is pretty hefty bit of war if you think about it and these Roman walls they lasted for 1,500 years until the German the Georgian sort of rebuilt them and made them a lot narrower but they are interesting to to have a look at the Romans of course famed for their Roman roads and from here in Chichester you follow certainly on a map you can follow quite a bit of it by following stained Street and that started from the crossroads at the top here the Rome has also famed for their empathy ''tis there's an amphitheater or at least Lee they found the foundations of an amphitheater just outside the Roman walls in Chichester and also Roman baths the Romans very clean lot for a soup from the centre of Chichester then the Romans this this whole town the county-town it's the only city in West Sussex and this county town is on a cross formation and although we have the anglo-saxons coming in and then the Normans it hasn't really changed very much from the Roman plan I'm making my way up to the very delightful Market Cross which was built in 1501 but that's jumping ahead of our story somewhat because after the Romans have been in at the anglo-saxons coming in and the Anglo Saxons funnily enough they strange Bunch they didn't use much of the town except they enjoyed the they enjoyed the protection of the Roman walls and so King Alfred made this a a burr town a fortified town and so they definitely used those those big thick walls and then the Normans came when the Normans came rogered a Montgomery who was a one of William the Conqueror's mates was given huge sways of land up and down the country he was the first Earl of Shrewsbury and as well as having Shropshire as one of his presence for being so helpful in the in the invasion of Britain he was given a lot of Sussex and this was one of his towns he built a castle here although actually in Chichester there is there's only a Motte and a bit of a Bailey left I think the castle and I can't be sure about this was made of wood because this certainly doesn't seem to be any sort of remains of the castle left so the Normans came in and they they put forward their dominance and everything around the place which was very important to keep the Brits at bay but one of the things the the anglo-saxons had done prior to the Normans coming in is they'd set up a cathedral in cells enos LZ is just a few miles away from here so they set up their little concede rule in the ninth century and the Normans weren't having any of that they didn't think it was an appropriate place down in cells he said they moved it and they decided they would build it here in Chitti ster but the the Normans hadn't really chosen the best place to build their cathedral and be known to them the ground wasn't ideal and over the years this fantastic Cathedral has suffered many catastrophes namely a couple of the towers collapsing in 1210 the Southwest tower collapsed and had to be rebuilt and then in 1635 the Northwest Tower collapsed I'm just going to get myself knocked over so I'm going to choose not to walk in the middle of the road and interestingly the 15th century bell tower was built away from the main body of the cathedral which in itself is a bit unusual and so is a little rarity to come along and see and I'm sure that because they started to learn about the mistakes that we the Normans had made and then of course there's the spire criticism richest aspire is seen from everywhere it is a fantastic landmark and if you were one of the captains of these ships sailing around the Solent you use the spire the high spire to navigate by and if you're driving anywhere in the county as you approach Chester you see the spire poking up out of the landscape it is absolutely fantastic now the spire had its own trouble for in the 19th century it collapsed it telescoped in on itself falling in and had to be rebuilt like so much of the Cathedral and consequently it was and it's now on the top and it looks absolutely fantastic tisha Starr now as you walk through the main center you no longer see the timber frame buildings as once was in the Middle Ages when the the butter cross was there which is a beautiful fantastic building there's only one like it in Sussex there's another cross in alfre stone but the butter cross is an absolutely terrific place like a Market Cross traditionally you would have your your butter and your dairy products your milk and all the rest of its so sold from that point so many of our villages had similar sort of things or small towns at least and then as you go through some of these terrific grand properties all really stemmed from now from the Georgian period but again like so many of our towns much of them are hidden behind what would have been a timber frame building finally I'm coming up to where the West Gate would have been to sister I believe only had four gates north south west and east gate and all of those no longer exists unlike some of the other places have been to where they you still have one existing gate such as at bridge north and a Ludlow in Shropshire please don't and I think that's such a shame but it doesn't mean at least traffic can get access into churches - well I hope we've enjoyed my little quick walk through leaving chit easter and the spire just poking up in the background and the bell tower and if I carry on weaving around in this direction I'll eventually get to the festival the Chester Festival Theatre which was built in 1962 where a lot of touring plays and theatre companies start off before going around the country anyway do give me a thumbs up if you've enjoyed the video don't forget to leave a comment don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you on the next one till then goodbye [Music]

Channel: Richard Vobes (The Bald Explorer)

Views: 47,195

Rating: 4.896524 out of 5

Keywords: chichester, market cross, butter market, sussex, west sussex, city, city of west sussex, chichester city, chichester cathedral, festival theatre, stane street, stain street, normans, roman wall, castle, walks in sussex, walking in england, richard vobes, bald explorer, market town, north street, south street, west street, east street, east gate, northgate, county hall

Id: OG9SI-_DBUc

Length: 9min 38sec (578 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 01 2017