Chichester

Chichester is the only city in West Sussex, a cathedral settlement of around 29,000 people built on the flat coastal plain between the chalk ridge of the South Downs and the tidal creeks of Chichester Harbour. Its street plan still follows the Roman grid laid out for Noviomagus Reginorum almost two thousand years ago, with North, South, East and West Streets radiating from the fifteenth-century Market Cross at the centre of town. Walk any of them for ten minutes and you reach a stretch of the old city wall, much of it still walkable as a footpath around the historic core.

The cathedral spire, visible from the surrounding fields and from ships out in the Channel, has anchored the city since 1075 and gives Chichester a scale and quiet that belie how much goes on within a short drive of it. The Chichester Festival Theatre stages a nationally significant summer season, Pallant House Gallery holds one of the best twentieth-century British art collections outside London, and the Goodwood estate on the edge of town brings motorsport and horseracing crowds that swell the city several times a year. To the south, the harbour and its beaches give Chichester an entirely different character again, one of sailing dinghies, oyster beds and wide skies over the water.

What makes Chichester distinctive is this combination of a small, walkable, largely Georgian and medieval city centre with genuinely varied countryside and coastline on every side: the Downs rising to the north, working farmland and Roman remains to the west, and the harbour's saltmarsh reaching south towards the sea.

Top things to do in Chichester

The city centre and its surrounding villages offer more than a day trip can cover, so most visitors pick a handful of the following:

• Chichester Cathedral is an active Anglican cathedral dating from 1075, notable for its separate medieval bell tower, a shrine to Saint Richard of Chichester and modern works of art including a tapestry by John Piper.
• Pallant House Gallery combines a Grade I listed Queen Anne townhouse with an award-winning contemporary extension, showing a collection built around a 1977 bequest that includes Hepworth, Moore and Sutherland.
• Fishbourne Roman Palace, just west of the city, protects the largest known Roman residence north of the Alps, with around fifty surviving mosaic floors and reconstructed formal gardens.
• Goodwood occupies eleven thousand acres on the Downs above the city and hosts the Festival of Speed hillclimb, the historic-racing Goodwood Revival and a full calendar of horseracing, golf and flying through the year.
• The Weald and Downland Living Museum at Singleton has reassembled more than fifty historic buildings, from a medieval hall house to a working watermill, on a rural site familiar to viewers of the BBC's The Repair Shop.
• West Dean Gardens combines a walled kitchen garden, restored Victorian glasshouses and a 90-metre pergola within the wooded West Dean estate below the Downs.
• Chichester Harbour is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty of tidal creeks and saltmarsh, best explored from the waterside villages of Bosham, Itchenor and Dell Quay, or by hired boat.
• West Wittering, on the harbour's outer shore, is a National Trust-managed sandy beach popular for swimming, windsurfing and kitesurfing, with views across the water to Hayling Island.

Getting to Chichester

Chichester sits on the direct rail line between Southampton and Brighton, with regular Southern services from London Victoria taking around one hour thirty to one hour forty minutes, usually changing at Barnham or running via Gatwick Airport, which sits roughly on the midpoint of the route. A slower alternative from London Waterloo runs via Havant or Portsmouth and takes closer to two hours. Trains also run west along the coast to Portsmouth and Southampton, and east to Worthing and Brighton, in both cases in well under an hour.

By road, the city lies on the A27 coastal trunk road, which connects it to Portsmouth and the M27 to the west and to Worthing, Brighton and the M23 to the east; the A286 and A285 run north over the Downs towards Midhurst and Petworth. Several council-run car parks ring the historic centre, including long-stay options near Avenue de Chartres and Basin Road, and on-street parking within the walls is limited and metered. The nearest airport is Southampton, around forty-five minutes by car, with Gatwick a little under an hour and a half depending on traffic.

Best time to visit Chichester

Spring brings the start of the Chichester Festival Theatre season and the best of the gardens, with West Dean and the cathedral cloisters at their freshest and the Downs turning green after winter. Summer is the busiest period, driven by the Festival of Speed in July and the long Goodwood racing calendar, alongside warm weather for the harbour beaches and sailing; book accommodation well ahead for these weeks. Autumn quietens the city again after the Goodwood Revival in September, and the Downs and Weald and Downland Museum are at their best for walking and colour through October. Winter is the calmest season, when the cathedral's Christmas services and markets draw local crowds but the harbour villages and coastal paths are close to empty, and the first Brent geese arrive on the mudflats from Siberia.

Where to stay in Chichester

The city centre, particularly North Street and South Street within the old walls, suits visitors who want to walk to the cathedral, the theatre and the shops without needing a car, and it offers everything from boutique hotels to guest houses in listed townhouses. The harbour villages of Bosham and Itchenor, a short drive or bus ride south, suit those who want a quieter, waterside base geared towards sailing and coastal walking rather than nightlife. The countryside around Goodwood and the villages of East Lavant and Singleton, just north of the city under the Downs, suit visitors focused on the racing and motorsport calendar or on walking the South Downs Way. Further south again, Selsey and West Wittering are the choice for a straightforwardly coastal, beach-focused stay, particularly for families.

Food and drink in Chichester

Chichester's food scene leans on what its surrounding land and water produce: South Downs lamb and beef, game from the estates around Goodwood, and shellfish and fish landed along the harbour and at Selsey, including crab, oysters and Dover sole. The twice-weekly farmers' and general market around North Street and the Cross sells much of this produce directly, alongside local cheese, bread and the wines now coming from vineyards planted on the chalk soils north of the city, such as Nutbourne. In the city itself, restaurants and pubs range from all-day dining rooms attached to hotels like The Ship at Harbour Hotel Chichester to smaller independent kitchens along the Pallants. Just outside town, country pubs including The Royal Oak at East Lavant and The Earl of March at Lavant have built reputations well beyond the city for seasonal, ingredient-led cooking, while the cathedral cloisters and several small tea rooms cater to a quieter, traditional afternoon tea crowd.