Just remembered I hadn’t covered the last bit of our trip to the Isle of Wight – our night in Chichester. To add to the hypothetical guide I might one day write – Battleaxe Recommends Great Places to Stay, here is a very good one to add, 4 Canon Lane. Normally when we go to Chichester we stay in the Premier Inn, but after our lovely little place in East Cowes – see the last post – I thought it would be too much of a let-down, so I gave us a treat…
4 Canon Lane is in the Cathedral Close, about 100 metres from the cathedral and adjoining the Bishop’s garden. It is wonderfully quiet and very atmospheric, with a private garden out the back. There are eight rooms upstairs, and downstairs is still used as a ‘centre for vocation, education and reconciliation’. We saw a number of earnest young persons sitting in meeting rooms, presumably busy reconciling…
Now here’s an interesting thing, the house used to be known as ‘George Bell House’, in memory of the Bishop of Chichester who had an outstanding career during WW2 and after as a peace campaigner and supporter of resistance against the Nazis. However, in 2015 his reputation was trashed over a sex abuse scandel, and the house was renamed. Nobody can say whether or not the allegations were true, but the Church was undoubtedly at fault in the way the allegations were handled and reported, and there is still a vigorous campaign to get the original name restored. See this article if you are interested, and this one.
Anyway, you drive into the close through the ancient archway on South Street, and there is the old house at the very end… We had a truly enormous room on the first floor with two windows – one big bay window looking out at the Cathedral, and the other with a view of the Palace Gardens. The room looked newly decorated. The bed was huge, everything was laid on… the bathroom was sumptuous – what was not to like. What’s more, we could park the car in a little walled car park right opposite. Only slight problem, they are not currently doing breakfast due to the Covid situation. I lay awake in the night hoping to hear the distant flapping of ghostly surplices, but it was totally quiet – not even any bonging from the Cathedral, which was a bit of a shame.
We went for a walk round the section of the Bishop’s Palace Garden that is open to the public – we have never discovered it before, although we have eaten meals in the cafe in the cloisters during previous visits. The garden is very peaceful, with some lovely old trees.
Of course, we were bang in the centre of the city – we briefly – and expensively – hit the shops, and in the evening we had an excellent meal in Cote, just down the road. 4 Canon Lane is not cheap… especially without any breakfast – but if you want a peaceful and beautiful place to stay, Battleaxe would totally recommend.
Next day we went to the Pallant House Gallery – one of our favourite places, and we have visited many times. On this occasion, the big exhibition was devoted to Ben Nicholson – not one of my favourite artists… but it was interesting. Sssh – it seemed to say to me how much Nicholson changed his style depending on which particular highly successful woman artist he was living with, but what do I know…
You can see from these pictures that it was still hot enough to sit out and have coffee under the lovely tree canopy at the Pallant House Cafe. It was only this time last week but seems like an eternity ago. The weather has changed. Autumn has arrived, the heating is on, I am busy with the massive job of changing my summer wardrobe for winter, and oh… we have less than a quarter of a tank of petrol in the car.
