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The earl and countess lie in stone
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat
And that faint hint of the absurd
The little dogs under their feet
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand
They would not think to lie so long
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base
They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the glass. A bright
Litter of bird calls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came.
Washing at their identity
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains;
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true
What will survive of us is love
If we'd been fortunate to reach Chichester Cathedral before it closed a couple of Saturdays back I'd have taken the TADS inside to see the Gothic Arundel tomb and read the poem above, Philip Larkin's 'An Arundel Tomb', that celebrated it to them.
But we didn't. We turned up too late and what's more - with only half the number (3) we started out with (6). Even from the off we were severely depleted when compared to last month's Hungerford to Newbury walk. Despite all this it still turned out to be a rather excellent, and really quite beautiful - if somewhat blustery, day.
I'd met Pam at East Croydon and we boarded the train to Barnham to join with Kathy and Rachael. After changing at that quaint little station with its retro cafe and second hand bookshop (I purchased a Twix) we hopped on the train to Nutbourne where Shep and Adam were waiting for us.
Soon we were in Nutbourne and soon we hit a (very minor) problem. The path that ran parallel to the railway line was somewhat overgrown. I had to brush nettles and prickles out of the way so we could pass through. Luckily it was only an eighty metre stretch before we crossed the lines and continued down Pottery Lane, past a tempting looking tyre swing, and on to the A259, a road that leads all the way to Folkestone.
We followed the A259 for about 200 metres and avoiding the temptation to pop in to The Barleycorn Tavern (despite their friendly looking WALKERS!!! menu) we turned south down Cot Lane, a fairly quiet road that I'd jogged down a handful of times a few years back when I was much fitter than I am now.
After about a kilometre we came off the road and on to a footpath. The walk proper, it felt like, was starting now - though not for Pam who was beginning to wonder why she'd even bothered bringing her camera. Oh ye of little faith! Hold your horses. Things will surely improve.
We passed through fields of wheat and long grass. We tried to identify crops. Is that sweet pea? Potato plants? Truth be told we weren't that good at it. But after several fields the scenery was gradually improving and it wasn't long before we caught our first glimpse of Chichester Harbour.
One of four natural harbours in the area (the others being Portsmouth, Langstone, and Pagham - all, surely, ripe for future experimentation on the walking front) and one of the last undeveloped areas of the southern coast. The mudflats provide feeding ground for plovers (ringed AND grey), redshanks, godwits, dunlins, curlews, greenshanks, and sanderlings. We followed a path along our first finger of the harbour until we came out, once again, on the A259.
It was windy but I felt I'd whetted the walker's whistles and after a predictably, and predicted, disappointing 600 metre yomp along the A259 we turned back southwards and, following a series of sharpish turns, crossed the Bosham Channel and walked along its eastern banks until we reached the postcard pretty and historically rich village of Bosham.
There were some fine houses to spot along the way, some waterfowl, some boats, and Adam identified both a dead cuttlefish and a dead jellyfish.
Bosham has been inhabited since Roman times and the evidence of several important Roman buildings (a theatre, possibly a temple) have been found in the area. The Bosham Head, part of the largest Roman statue found in Britain, too - as well as a legionary helmet from the reign of Claudius (41-54BC). Tradition holds that Vespasian (reign:69-79) maintained a residence here though there's no actual evidence of this.
In 731 the Venerable Bede mentioned Bosham in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. There's another tradition that Cnut (reign:1016-1035) commanded the waves to go back here. That's not bad history for such a small place but there's still more. Bosham crops up in both the Bayeux Tapestry and the Domesday Book and there's a belief that King Harold was buried in the village following his defeat at the Battle of Hastings. A rival location for Harry's final resting place is Waltham Abbey.
Another disputed burial in the area is that of Cnut's daughter. Is she buried in the grounds of Bosham's church? Nobody's quite sure. It's an interesting church (well I thought so, Shep seemed more interested in the "very hot organ/piano players" and Adam seemed so dismissive he headed off to the pub while me, Pam, Kathy, and Rachael had a nose round).
The Holy Trinity Church, for that is its formal name, has been in existence since Anglo-Saxon times. Bede wrote that Wilfrid (bishop, later saint) founded a small monastery here in 681 and before the Norman conquest it was given by Edward the Confessor (reign:1042-1066) to his chaplain, Osbern FitzOsbern who later became Bishop of Exeter.
We had a nose around the church and its churchyard, admiring the understated stained glass and, after being equally appreciative of a cottage with a thatched roof, we joined Adam in the busy (it's near the coast, it's Saturday, it's June - it would be) and attractive Anchor Bleu pub where I'd hoped for a cream cheese, pesto, and sweet red pepper sandwich but the lengthy waiting for food mitigated against such fayre. I had a whippy later instead.
Adam necked his coffee and decided he wasn't feeling it today (he'd been up playing Dungeons and Dragons until midnight the night before!) so left us and went home. The rest of us toasted Shep's recently deceased pet rabbit, Rabbiton, and supped up before heading back harbourside.
It was a pity Adam left early but it's never a good idea to try and persuade people to do things they don't want to do. It was quite out of character of him to slip off so early and it felt odd that he'd gone but an ice cream perked up my spirits and we ambled slowly up Shore Road until we left Bosham via some very expensive looking houses. As ever!
About two kilometres from Bosham we turned right on a t-junction and, more concerning for me and a cause of much hilarity for Kathy especially, my walking boots began to disintegrate. The heel was working itself loose exposing sock and leaving me in danger of both wet feet and a barefoot walk into Chichester. Luckily they held out. For this walk at least. That's yet another expense coming up!
You could really see how the wind has shaped the landscape here by looking at the trees. Eventually we found ourselves winding northwards of the Chichester Channel, edging close but not into Fishbourne. We followed round the top of the channel and back down its busier eastern side. Swans galore. One even sleeping in its nest - which made for quite a spectacle.
We crossed various small waterways, the River Lavant (a winterbourne, so dry in summer), admired boats both well maintained and rusting in the harbour, giggled at the word POO graffitied on a sign, and saw a WWII sign of thanks to the many Czech troops who helped out the UK during that conflict. A stick in the eye for raging nationalist nutjobs like Mark Francois, Dominic Raab, and all the other vile, mendacious, self-serving Brexit fantasists, liars, and xenophobes currently vying to lead, and destroy both the Tory party (good riddance) and the country (which is not to be celebrated).
Thoughts of Brexit would surely turn any sane and rational person to the drink and though I'm not totally sure we can count ourselves in that sane and rational camp there was, luckily enough, a rather inviting pub up next.
The Crown and Anchor had a windy, but very attractive, beer garden facing out on to the harbour but we'd been out in the sun and wind all day and felt no guilt about pulling up a table inside for a two pint mistake. Shep didn't even seem perturbed that it was a Young's house. It was the sort of place you could have wasted an entire afternoon and evening but we had to get to Chichester.
Kathy and Rachael decided they'd take a taxi so soon there was just the three of us. Shep, Pam, and myself out walking in the wind. It was not an unfamiliar experience - and, as the wind was nowhere near as extreme as that which we experienced in Swanage last July, neither was it an unpleasant one.
Though we did, for our final stretch with Chichester Cathedral looming in the distance, keep reaching designated footpaths that were so overgrown they'd become impassable. We had to take the road for the most part. As Shep commented on reaching Terminus Road Industrial Estate, it's lovely to approach historic cities via generic and dull industrial estates!
Once we'd passed by the various automotive franchises and crossed a heavily fortified railway bridge we were back on the path I'd planned for us to enter Chichester by. Finally!
Chichester was once Noviomagus and roads celebrate its twins Ravenna (Via Ravenna) and Chartres (Avenue de Chartres). We passed an architecturally interesting leisure centre and came out by the Lavant, barely a brook but still the city's major waterway. Passing through Bishop's Palace Gardens which hosts a fountain from which I'd hoped to regale my fellow walkers with some 'Chich' history.
Chichester is the only city in West Sussex. It stands on the foundations of Noviomagus Reginorum, the capital of the Civitas Reginorum, and the road to Silchester led from here. For 1,500 years a six and half foot wall surrounded the city but it's been replaced by a thinner Georgian one.
During the Anglo-Saxon period it was captured by AElle (first king of the South Saxons, reign:477-514?) and renamed after his son and successor Cissa (reign:514-567?). More recent Chichester notables include Hugh Dennis, Michael Elphick, Eric Gill, Anohni (Antony and the Johnsons), Kate Mosse, Tim Peake, Anita Roddick, Patricia Routledge, and the excellently named Honeysuckle Weeks.
Chichester was one of the burghs created by Alfred the Great (around 878/879) and during the first English Civil War of 1642 the city was besieged. We'd worked our way towards the cathedral so had a little look at what we could of that.
It was impressive even though the doors were locked. The original cathedral was built in Selsey but the seat of the bishopric moved to Chichester in 1075. The cathedral's been painted by Turner and Monty Python's Ron Obvious was once tasked with eating it!
The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, to give it its full name, is a mixture of Norman and Gothic architecture and has a free standing, and much rougher and older looking, campanile - one that is unique among English medieval cathedrals. As are its double aisles. It's said that the city of Chichester has always been, and still is, small enough that the entire population could fit inside the cathedral.
This was met with nothing short of derision by Daniel Defoe who, on hearing this fact, remarked "I cannot say much of Chichester, in which, if six or seven good families were removed, there would not be much conversation, except what is to be found among the canons, and the dignitaries of the cathedral". Miaow!
It's the only English medieval cathedral to be visible from the sea. Gustav Holst is buried in its grounds, Leonard Bernstein composed Chichester Psalms for it, and inside there is art by Graham Sutherland, John Piper, and Marc Chagall as well as the Arundel tomb of which I wrote earlier in this piece.
We admired gargoyles, arches, statues, and carried along through the city centre (like most British town centres in this age of austerity, now more teeming with the homeless than ever before in my lifetime at least), stopping to photograph a wishbone hanging from a square clock before proceeding straight to Masala City without even another pub stop.
Cobras were consumed, good chat was had, and the food (I boringly went for tarka dall, pilau rice, and a chapati - AGAIN) was pretty decent too. By the time we were finished we headed to the Station Store for some train booze, admired the retro clock on the station wall, and Shep went one way and me and Pam the other. I said goodbye to Pam where I met her, East Croydon station, and headed home.
As with many of this year's TADS walks it hadn't ended up exactly as I'd planned but that hadn't really mattered. It had still been an excellent day of walking, drinking, eating, and, as ever - most importantly, friends. Next month we're on our annual two dayer in Bath and Bristol!
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