‘Reading’churches

PROBABLY every area is proud of its churches, but Chichester has got more reason than most, says the man who should know.

Richard Taylor, author of How To Read A Church and presenter of the BBC series Churches: How To Read Them, has a huge fondness for this part of the country.

“I used to have a caravan at Wittering and loved the area. You’ve got some wonderful churches.”

Not least Chichester Cathedral - though the series’ no-cathedrals rule ruled it out of consideration.

“But you have got a wonderful little trio there, one that you could easily do in an afternoon.

“You should start at Bosham at Holy Trinity, which is very, very ancient, one of the earliest recorded Christian settlements in the country. You should start there for its sheer antiquity. You have got the great arch that appears on the Bayeux Tapestry, and it’s a fair bet that Harold prayed there before going into battle.

“And then you should go down the road to Boxgrove which was a few hundred years later. It’s a priory from just before the Reformation. And then you should go down to Cosham and come up to date with a 20th century, beautiful graceful white-pillaster church from the 1930s, St Philip.