THE CLOSE
The organisation of the Cathedral
Church at Chichester, of secular
foundation, grew up gradually and
somewhat irregularly. Before the time of Bishop
Ralph de Luffa (1091–1123), the bishops and their
priests probably lived in the buildings vacated by
the inmates of St. Peter's minster. Luffa reorganised the cathedral establishment and appointed
the office of dean, and either he or Bishop Hilary
(1147–69) introduced the offices of precentor, treasurer and chancellor. It was probably with the view
of laying out the close for the accommodation of the
newly organised staff that Bishop Hilary in 1147
obtained a confirmation of the grant of the southwestern quarter of the city. Within this quarter he
apparently built an episcopal palace and houses for
the dean and the other dignitaries of the church,
and the canons. The houses then erected were consumed by the fire of 1187 and had to be rebuilt by
Bishop Seffrid II (d. 1204), parts of which rebuilding
yet remain in the Bishop's Chapel, the Chapel of
St. Faith and possibly in the house of the royal
chaplains. The houses were built fronting the
south side of Canon Lane and the (later) south alley of
the cloister with its extensions east and west. It is
interesting to note that these lines of communication
run parallel to West Street, the Roman Road, without
having any relation to the axis of the then newly
built Cathedral Church. This points to the adoption
of pre-existing roads used by the Saxon clergy,
survivals perhaps of the Roman lay-out, and gives
the distorted shape to the cloister. At the west end
of the way running through the south alley of the
cloister was the bishop's palace, and on the north
side of the palace was the house (now demolished)
of the chancellor, probably the dignitary who was
most intimately connected with the bishop. The
treasurer's house was to the east of the palace on the
south side of the alley. The houses of the dean,
the precentor and the residentiary canons were on
the south side of Canon Lane with gardens extending
to the city wall and a way to the cathedral by St.
Richard's Wyne, Lane or Walk. From the beginning
of the 12th century, new prebends were founded
and endowed, and fresh accommodation had to be
provided for the new prebendaries. The practice of
granting prebends to kings' clerks and other nonresident canons led to the provision of vicars to
take the place of the absent canons in the services
of the church. This practice of non-residence was
in force as early as 1251 (fn. 1) and spread so that the
governance, board and lodging of the vicars had to
be regulated at the end of the 14th century. Their
lodging and hall were provided in the Vicars' Close
northward from the east end of Canon Lane, at the
end of the 14th century.
Bishop Robert Sherburne early in the 16th century
made further changes in the cathedral establishment.
He founded four residentiary canonries with the
prebends of Bursalis, Windham, Exceit and Bargham
in 1523. The Bursalis prebendary was to be a
graduate from New College, Oxford, and the others
were to be Wykehamists from either New College
or Winchester School; the dean and chapter were
to appoint to Bargham and the Bishop to the other
three prebends. (fn. 2) Accommodation was found for
these new canons at a house in the cloister now known
as the house of Wiccamical prebendaries, which was
adapted for the purpose. The resident canons and
also the vicars alike had a communal life before the
Reformation. Their numbers varied from time to
time. There were about 12 canons residentiary in
the 14th century, but in 1574 the number was fixed
at four, besides the dean. (fn. 3)
The Cloister is wholly of the 15th century and is
of irregular plan obviously governed by the preexisting buildings which stood south of the cathedral
and the graveyard known as 'Paradise.' The three
cloister alleys were mainly used to give access to the
church from different parts of the Close. They may
have been covered by a wooden pent as a protection
for the canons, but there is no evidence of a covered
masonry cloister before the present cloister was
built. (fn. 4)
The east walk of the cloister, of eight bays, runs from
the south doorway in the second bay of the eastern
arm to the west end of St. Faith's Chapel, part of which
it absorbed. The doorway from the church was
evidently made with the cloister, and its position
allows the walk to be nearly at right angles with the
church. The position of the west walk, which is only
of four bays, was governed by that of the south porch,
this being the only available place for the second
entrance from the cloister. The other end of the walk
was probably fixed by the now destroyed Treasury,
which caused the walk to be slightly canted to the
west from the north end. The distance between
the treasury and St. Faith's Chapel is considerable,
being some 170 ft., flanking the greater part of the
eastern arm, the south transept and the sacristy
west of it. The treasury was some 32 ft. nearer
to the church than St. Faith's, so that the south
walk is very much longer than the others, and is
canted inwards from east to west; it consists of
eleven bays.
The wall towards the garth is built of flints, the
upper part of ashlar inside. The windows in the bays
are all alike in design, being of four cinquefoiled lights
and vertical tracery in two-centred heads; the jambs
are moulded and have engaged shafts with octagonal
moulded capitals and round bases. The recesses are
fitted with stone benches. The five north windows
of the east walk are glazed, also three in the west walk
and the one on the west side of it. In the south walk
between the fourth and fifth windows from the east is
a moulded two-centred gateway into the garth (Paradise). It is fitted with an early-18th-century wroughtiron gate. There are buttresses on the inner sides of
the east and south walks, generally between each
alternate bay. The part of the north wall of St.
Faith's which crosses the east walk, and its west wall
across the south walk, are carried on moulded fourcentred arches and the west end of it in the garth is
buttressed. The end of the chapel is closed by a wooden
partition, now mostly modern, but containing an old
pointed doorway with a modern moulded label.
The outer or east wall of the east walk is mostly of
flint outside with internal ashlar above a 5 ft. level,
and is solid except for an archway at the south end
(north of St. Faith's), which has moulded jambs and
a two-centred head with a moulded label on the east
face. The wall is divided by buttresses into five bays.
The outer west wall is also of flint with knapped
faces: it has a window at the north end like those in
the inner wall, but of modern stonework. At the
south end of it is a 14th-century archway with shafted
jambs having moulded capitals. This has been reset inserted in a larger archway which has a twocentred head. The south wall contains sundry doorways and windows which belong to the buildings
against the cloister and are more properly described
with them.
The roofs are all of open timbering of trussed
rafter type, with arched braces below the collarbeams to form barrel vaults: the wall plates are
moulded, and there are also moulded central purlins
in the east walk (only) below the collars and curved
braces. The arches formed by the braces in the east
walk are nearly semicircular; in the south and west
walks they are four-centred.
Among the mural monuments in the cloister are
the following: in the east alley to Hannah Gooch,
wife of the Lord Bishop of Norwich and daughter
of Sir John Miller, 1746, and their son, John; to
William Laver, 1829; to John Sherer, Mayor of
Chichester, 1730–1, and his wife Mary (Henshaw),
1706, also to Thomas, his brother, 1706–7, and Elizabeth, 1681, Mary, 1687, Richard, 1692, John, 1707,
William, 1726, and Margaret, 1729, his children; to
Major Anthony Greene, 1814; to Mary Dilke, 1852;
William Wentworth Grant Dilke, her son, 1854,
and William Dilke, 1885; to Emma Georgiana Dilke,
1903; to Martha (Carter) wife of Henry Smart, 1729;
also Robert, her son, 1740, and Henry Smart, her
husband, alderman, 1760; and to George Edward
Heming, 1827. In the south alley to Richard Fuller,
1842, Lydia, his wife, 1804, and four infants, and
Mary, mother of R. Fuller, 1806; to James Whitwood,
1701, John Bull, 1710, Mrs. Mary Watts, daughter
of J. Whitwood and relict of Mr. Bull, 1733, and Mr.
John Watts, 1738; to Mary Johnson, 1784, Martha
Cooper, 1791, William Johnson, 1801, and Mary,
widow, 1869; to Edward Johnson, 1807, Jane, widow,
1810, Anna Johnson, granddaughter, 1821, Edward
William Johnson, 1874, and Mary Jane Johnson,
1875; to Edward Johnson, 1875, John James Johnson,
1890, and Thomas Weller-Poley, 1924; to Canon
Thomas Woodward, 1696, and Hannah Smyth of
Chilgrove, his wife, 1722; to Charles Wentworth
Dilke, 1826, and Sarah, his wife, 1825; to William
Chillingworth, A.M., 1643–4, Chancellor of Salisbury
Cathedral; to Oliver Whitby, son of Oliver Whitby,
Archdeacon and Canon of Chichester, 1702; to Ruth
Geere, 1744, Thomas Geere, 1781, Ruth Nixon,
daughter, 1789, Thomas Geere, son, 1805, John
Blagden, 1831, and Frances, wife of John Blagden
and daughter of Ruth Nixon, 1835; William Ridge,
1829, Sarah, his wife, 1816, and Ann, daughter, 1830;
to Alderman John Harris, 1730; to Henry Mullins,
1780, Sarah, his wife, 1808, Elizabeth, daughter,
1776, Catherine Sandham, granddaughter, 1778, and
Sarah, daughter of Henry and Sarah, 1829; to Captain
Thomas Allen, 1781; to Richard Brazier Pope, 1823,
and Mary, his wife, 1828; to William Thomas
Williams, 1828, and Emma Morgan Williams, his
sister, 1846. In the west alley to Dorothy, wife of
William Lane, 1807; to William Ellis Nembhard,
1829; to Canon Thomas Hurdis, D.D., 1784, and
Naomi, his wife, 1781; to Ann Pilkington, 1846, and
Theophania Pilkington, 1855; to Canon Charles
Pilkington, 1828, and Harriet Elizabeth, his widow,
1850; to George Pilkington, 1842; to George
Farhill Dixon, 1838, and George Manley and Mary
Catherine, his infant children; to Canon Thomas
Baker, 1831; to John Shore, 1773, and Jane, his
widow, 1803; to Canon John Frankland, A.M., 1778;
to Canon Richard Green, LL.B., 1775, and Anna, his
widow, 1790; to Richard Smith, 1767; to Michael
Smalpage, 1595 (marble monument with bust of man
in a niche), erected by Percival, his son; to John
Shore, M.D., 1721; to Elizabeth (Briggs), widow of
John Shore, M.D., 1759; and to Thomas Briggs,
LL.D., 1713, Chancellor of the Diocese.
In the east walk are floor slabs to Mary, widow
of Henry Cheynall, D.D., and daughter of Sir Thomas
Miller, 1729; and to Hannah Gooch, wife of the Bishop
of Norwich and daughter of Sir John Miller, 1746, and
John her infant son, 1728.