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
27 East street
MB My mum worked 27 east street and when it flooded in the 90s they found a big cellar and you could look down into an area which was like a tunnel
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).
Historically, to build a house with a simple cellar you would dig out the ground to a depth of around 6ft, the cellar walls would have been constructed with a lining of stone or brick and with a drain for water within the cellar. The floors would have been built up on crushed stone or sand to provide a level surface and paved, usually with flags. Brick paving became more common in later periods.
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.
DD I worked at 65 East Street when it was ''Hammick''s Bookshop'' (now Specsavers). We had a trapdoor in the middle of the floor that led down to a tunnel-shaped cellar that seemed to extend through the front of the shop and under the pavement outside. I didn''t see any evidence of it ever having joined another tunnel and imagine that perhaps there was once an opening in the pavement for deliveries.
AArc141/14/EVAL Roussillon Park, Broyle Road, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 BBL
Sporadic finds represent the early prehistoric period in the vicinity of the Project Site, with the discovery of Palaeolithic axe in a garden on Brandy Hole Lane (c. 600m to the NW) and a Neolithic stone axe, in the vicinity of Spitalfield Lane, over 1km to the SE (Lee 2008: 9).
Bronze Age activity has been recorded c. 500m to the east of the site, in the vicinity of Garyiingwell Hospital, where evidence for settlement was identified along with remains of six cremation burials (Lee 2008: 9).
summeerdale football ,I have an update on the old newspaper article relating to Summersdale and the tunnel found under a football pitch. I sent an email to the Summersdale Residents Association, and they were extremely helpful with one of the members being able to identify a location for the site of the pitch. Looking at some old maps and combining the documents from Liam Mandville regarding subsidence etc. the area between The Avenue and Highland Road (on the Eastern side), does fit well as to the location. Many of the properties built on this site have substantial gardens so there may still be something to find that could explain what was found by the groundkeeper all those years ago? ,5f6f8e5fb6881-116345275_10157348686446892_326855352233187857_n.jpg,5f6f8e5fb7b45-116168775_10157348685396892_1033817068655264665_n.jpg
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
