A number of those readers remembered a story about tunnels underneath Hansford Menswear, also in South Street, so we spoke the shop's owner to find out more Matthew Hansford described a blocked-off passage in cellar of the shop, which he believes may have led to the cathedral
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In the 1970s the passageway was open and was once used by burglars who used the route to break-in to the shop and make off with a number of sheepskin coats.
Matthew said: "I think [the burglary] was before I was here, in the 70s, but the tunnel has been breeze-blocked up now. It is probably as much hearsay as anything else but as far as I know it was built to link the cathedral to the shop.
"The shop used to house the vicars and people who worked at the cathedral but I haven't been down there because it is breeze-blocked up. "All I have been told is that originally the priests, or whoever, used to go underground but I'm not sure if there is just one tunnel or several."
Amateur investigators are also looking into the reported tunnels which are different the river Lavant culverts.
If you have any information about possible tunnels under the city, get in touch:
Random articles of interest
Doline – Chichester To Westbourne
Brandy Hole Lane, East Broyle Copse area in the northwest part of Chichester. A well-developed doline line extends east-west across the area to the north of Brandy Hole Lane, along the underlying Chalk-Reading Beds boundary.
The Environment Agency has made 1m-resolution LIDAR imagery coverage for large areas of England and Wales freely available on the internet under Open Government Licence (www.lidarfinder.com).
A number of those readers remembered a story about tunnels underneath Hansford Menswear, also in South Street, so we spoke the shop''s owner to find out more. Matthew Hansford described a blocked-off passage in cellar of the shop, which he believes may have led to the cathedral
There is rumoured to be a tunnel from the white horse to the buttery and then from the buttery to the cathedral.
Regarding a tunnel from the crypt to the cathedral. Apparently Keats while upstairs being "entertained" watched the monks lock the gate to the cathedral. Now did he have xray specs on ??? That''s the pic of the guy gesturing towards the shelves is where the door way used to be
From trying to locate the areas marked on the old maps as smugglers or roman caves at the approc following locations. Our team tried to take photos as best we could.
su 85228 06608 50.8527, -0.7906 su 85255 06596 50.8526, -0.7902 su 85249 06577 50.8524, -0.7903 su 85248 06565 50.8523, -0.7903 su 85329 06661 50.8532, -0.7892 su 85359 06657 50.8531, -0.7887
About 50 years ago in the vestry of St. John’s Church In Chichester a flag stone was taken up by some teenagers and a tunnel was revealed. Apparently it runs along under St Johns Street in a south / north direction
Between The Drive’s western and southern ends, Charles Stride built a private estate in c.1905 which included a nine hole golf course designed by James Braid, a lodge (Uplands), and a mansion (Woodland Place) with tree-lined grounds which, as Rew Lane, was developed in the late 1950s. The golf course was too close to the Goodwood course to be a commercial success and it was given up for gravel extraction immediately prior to the first World War, with a mineral branch line connected later to the Chichester-Midhurst railway. His golf course and pavilion is mentioned in https://golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/england/south-east/sussex/851-sus-summersdale-golf-club-chichester
The Chichester SMR holds information for 48 sites, whilst the National Monuments Record Centre holds details of a further 16 sites within the study area. An additional four sites were located through analysis of historic mapping and during the course of the walkover survey and one from aerial photographs. Full site descriptions and locations can be seen in Appendix B. Within the report, the bracketed numbers after site descriptions relate to those allocated to individual sites in Appendix B and on Figure 2.
Summersdale is an attractive area in the north of Chichester. Spacious and leafy, the character of the area is now under threat with many houses on large plots at risk of demolition and re-development. It is an historic suburb with high quality architecture in street scenes that are worthy of enlightened protection.
