Chichester in the 1960s: Culture, Conservation and Change

By Alan H.J. Green

Chichester is the archetypal Georgian town, with its streets of elegant buildings gathered closely around its ancient cathedral. It usually appears to today's first-time visitor that the city has been largely untouched by the hand of time—particularly the destructive hand that guided the 1960s. However, this is not the case: in the 1960s Chichester faced the same challenges as all historic towns, and much was lost—but the brakes were applied in good time and it became one of the first conservation areas in the country. This book, the first of its kind, looks at how the Chichester fared in that turbulent decade, how it gained in its status as a city of culture with a new theater and museum, and how it expanded to meet the demands of its growing populace. Historical research blends with personal anecdote to produce a heartfelt portrait of the decade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Feb 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9780750963251

Book preview

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF:

John Birch (1929–2012), organist of Chichester Cathedral 1958–80

and

Peter Iden (1945–2012), celebrated Chichester artist

Much-missed friends who contributed so much to the artistic life of this city they loved, and also contributed material for this book which, sadly, they were not to see in print.

Front Cover

Change: Buses reversing in Tower Street in 1956. At that time buses terminated in West Street and the necessary reversing caused much congestion. By the 1960s this problem had been removed with the opening of a proper bus station in Southgate, which was fortunate as the rapid increase in car ownership in that decade would have meant that West Street would have been gridlocked for most of the day.

Culture: One of the most distinguished Cicestrians in the 1960s, Bernard Price Price was a writer, broadcaster, art connoisseur and antiques expert. Here he is seen opening the new headquarters for the 12th Chichester Scout Group in 1969.

Back Cover

Conservation: Chichester became the subject of a study into conservation in 1968 but, sadly, only after the east side of Somerstown had been unnecessarily destroyed in 1964.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Researching a work of this size and complexity would not be possible without considerable assistance from a large number of organisations and individuals. Acknowledging that assistance brings with it the risk of omission, and if I have committed this crime I apologise unreservedly and assure the omitee that this was owing to ever-increasing senior moments rather than a cavalier attitude to their contribution.

I must begin with the ever-patient staff of West Sussex Record Office (WSRO), where the bulk of the research was carried out, and who supplied scans of photographs and permission to publish them. I also thank the staff of Chichester Library where I accessed the all-important microfilms of the Chichester Observer. I must thank the town clerk, Rodney Duggua, and Clare Adams of Chichester City Council for granting me access to the council’s archive and permission to reproduce their photographs of civic occasions. Similarly Prof. Clive Behagg, vice chancellor, and Janet Carter, archivist, of the University of Chichester kindly supplied photographs and information about the building of the Chapel of the Ascension of the former Bishop Otter College and gave permission for their reproduction here for which I am most grateful. Martin Hayes, County Local Studies Librarian of West Sussex County Council Library Service, kindly supplied information about the new Chichester Library and the photograph of the much-vaunted computerised ticketing system in use.

Producing this book has made for a pleasurable stroll down memory lane – and not only for me, for it has been my privilege to be able to stir the memories of many other Cicestrians and raid their photograph albums, thus adding contemporary anecdotal and photographic evidence to the story. These include Anne Scicluna, John Templeton, Chris Butler, Garry Long, David Stuckey, Allan and Pat Ware, Linda Wilkinson, Richard Pailthorpe, Martin Philmore, Gerry Adams, Geoffrey Claridge, Eve Willard and the late John Birch and Peter Iden.

It is a local historian’s dream to discover rich seams of previously unpublished photographs to illustrate his tome and I have been particularly fortunate to be given access to two such collections. The first was that of John Iden, who as a young man was a very keen photographer, meticulously cataloguing and dating each negative. When a building was threatened with demolition, off John went to record it. The second collection was that of Rod Funnell who, as an architect practicing in the city in the 1960s (he designed the new library), took progress pictures of the projects with which he was involved. To both these gents I am extremely grateful. Once again John Templeton has kindly granted me permission to reproduce more of his superb – and now famous – 1960s slides, most notably those of the Big Freeze of 1962/63.

I am also grateful to Terry Carlysle who has a nose for sniffing out Chichester snippets and artefacts on the Internet, and making eBay purchases on my behalf via the good offices of her daughter Felicity, who is skilled in the art of virtual auctions, which I am not.

I have attempted to record many of Chichester’s organisations, institutions and businesses of the period and in this have received valuable help from people involved, namely Allan and Pat Ware (St John Ambulance Brigade and Girl Guides), Michael Merritt (12th Chichester Scouts) Mick Bleach (Bleaches Coaches) Gerald Brockhurst (Everymans Coaches), Pam Jones (Granada Cinema), Vera Abraham and Sue Marchant (Jessie Younghusband School) and Rachael Morriarty and Eileen Brown (Bishop Luffa School). In many cases this has resulted in unearthing yet more unpublished photographs as well as forgotten artefacts.

The controversial development of the East Broyle Estate spanned the decade and I am grateful to Ian Creswick for access to the deeds of his East Broyle house and to his son Richard who, when on a work experience placement at WSRO, helped me with the research into this convoluted project; to Graham Brooks and Michael Merritt who provided some early photographs of the development and to Ken Rimell and the Chichester Observer for permission to publish the two aerial photographs.

To all these I express my deep-felt thanks for their time, support and – above all – generosity.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

    1.  Cover of Chichester’s Festival of Britain programme

    2.  Procession of mayor and Corporation to the cenotaph, 1962

    3.  Mayor-making ceremony, 1960

    4.  Mervyn Cutten’s city council election campaign leaflet, 1962

    5.  Cllr Harry Bell being made mayor, 1965

    6.  Cllr Alice Eastland with Bishop Bell

    7.  Dinner menu, Eric Banks’ silver jubilee as town clerk, 1961

    8.  Eric Banks being presented with silver candlesticks, 1966

    9.  City council offices at Greyfriars, 1950s

  10.  Council Chamber, 1961

  11.  Flyleaf of Chichester City Guidebook

  12.  Cover of Chichester Paper 31, 1963

  13.  500th anniversary of City Cross, 2001

  14.  Cover of Thomas Sharp’s report

  15.  Master plan from Sharp’s report

  16.  Lennards’ shoe shop, 1915

  17.  Lennards’ shoe shop shored up, 1960

  18.  Nos 1 & 2 South Street, Barrett’s bookshop, 1963

  19.  Nos 25–26 North Street, 1964

  20.  No. 24 North Street with raking shores, 1965

  21.  T.E. Jay’s ironmonger’s shop, Nos 7–8 East Street, 1958

  22.  New Tesco store, Nos 7–8 East Street

  23.  North Street, 1950s

  24.  Hepworths, East Street, 1964

  25.  West end of Crane Street, 1966

  26.  Crane Street looking east, 1966

  27.  Stride & Son notice of auction of East Broyle Farm, 1959

  28.  No. 74 Norwich Road when new in 1968

  29.  No through road! East end of Norwich Road today

  30.  Aerial view across East Broyle Estate looking west, 1975

  31.  View across East Broyle Estate looking north, 1975

  32.  Extract from 1960 Ordnance Survey of St John’s Street

  33.  South end of St John’s Street, 1966

  34.  Basin Road looking south, 1962

  35.  Town map of 1966 showing revised alignments of ring road

  36.  Nos 32–35 Southgate and Bedford Hotel, 1960

  37.  Orchard Street seen from North Walls, 1965

  38.  East end of Franklin Place being demolished, 1967

  39.  Northgate car park under construction, 1961

  40.  Demolition of Halsted’s ironfoundry, 1960

  41.  Cover of Chichester conservation area study report, 1968

  42.  Nos 48–57 George Street, Somerstown, 1963

  43.  East side of Broyle Road, Somerstown, 1963

  44.  Another view of Broyle Road, Somerstown, 1963

  45.  Demolition of Waggon & Horses, Somerstown, 1964

  46.  View across Somerstown during demolition, 1964

  47.  Eastgate Square, 1960

  48.  Eastgate Square, 1964, with Sharp Garland’s shop being demolished

  49.  Sharp Garland’s shop being demolished, 1964

  50.  View of the cathedral from Westgate Fields, 1960

  51.  Chichester College under construction, 1964

  52.  Westgate ‘bottleneck’ looking west, 1962

  53.  Last look at the view of the cathedral from Westgate Fields, 1962

  54.  Southgate end of the ring road under construction, 1965

  55.  Buildings on the west side of Southgate awaiting demolition, 1963

  56.  Westgate in July 1962

  57.  Nos 16–40 Orchard Street, 1961

  58.  West Street with demolition of Westgate in background, 1963

  59.  Another view of Westgate demolition, 1963

  60.  Old theatre on South Street when it was Lewis’s furniture shop

  61.  Model of Chichester Festival Theatre

  62.  Festival Theatre under construction, 1961

  63.  Festival Theatre, 1967

  64.  Interior of Festival Theatre, 1962

  65.  Cover of First Season Festival Theatre programme, 1962

  66.  Postcard with commemorative postmark for first Festival Theatre season, 1962

  67.  Theatregoers arriving on the penultimate night of the 1962 season

  68.  No. 31 Little London, house of Fred Sadler

  69.  Name plate for Chichester City Museum made by John Skelton

  70.  John Skelton working on Symbol of Discovery for Chichester City Museum, 1963

  71.  Completed Symbol of Discovery outside the museum

  72.  Opening of Chichester City Museum, 1964

  73.  View along Tower Street, 1964

  74.  Construction of the new library underway, 1965

  75.  Another view of the new library under construction, 1965

  76.  Tower Street with the new library nearing completion, 1966

  77.  Original computer library ticket, 1967

  78.  Computerised library ticketing system in use, 1967

  79.  Prof. Asa Briggs opening the new library, 1967

  80.  Assembled dignitaries listening to speeches at the opening of the new library

  81.  Walter Hussey when Dean of Chichester

  82.  John Birch, organist of Chichester Cathedral

  83.  Cast list for 1964 Chichester Operatic production of Yeomen of the Guard

  84.  Cover of 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival programme, 1965

  85.  Extract from the programme for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival

  86.  Yvonne Hudson’s mural of Minerva

  87.  ‘Street Scene Duian, France’ by R.O. Dunlop, 1963

  88.  ‘St Martin’s Square, Chichester’ by Peter Iden

  89.  Advert for David Paul Gallery, 1962

  90.  Offord & Meynell’s bookshop, No. 50 East Street

  91.  Coffee bar inside Offord & Meynell’s bookshop

  92.  Return half of a rail ticket from Chichester to Hayling Island, 1961

  93.  2 HAL electric train in the bay at Chichester on a Portsmouth working

  94.  Electric locomotive 20001 in Chichester yard, 1962

  95.  Scholar season ticket Arundel to Chichester, 1968

  96.  Battle of Britain class locomotive leaving Chichester yard on an early morning freight, 1965

  97.  Extract from 1964 Ordnance Survey showing Chichester station and yard

  98.  Special train at Lavant, 1967

  99.  Buses reversing in Tower Street, 1956

100.  Aerial view over Chichester Bus Station, 1964

101.  Advert in 1961 Southdown timetable for the licensed buffet at Chichester Bus Station

102.  Buses in West Street, 1956

103.  Bus route map from 1961 Southdown timetable for Chichester

104.  Southdown ‘Queen Mary’ in West Street 1962

105.  Southdown 1963 advert for coaching services

106.  Southdown coach on hire to Chichester High School for Boys, 1961

107.  Girls’ Lancastrian School badge

108.  Programme for 1962 Girl’s Lancastrian School bicentenary celebrations

109.  Central Junior Boys’ School, New Park Road

110.  Central Junior Boys’ School blazer badge

111.  View of the rear of Central Junior Girls’ School from Tower Street

112.  Extract from 1966 Chichester High School for Boys school photograph

113.  Cast and stage crew of Chichester High School for Boys school play, 1961

114.  Chris Butler in Jessie Younghusband School blazer, c. 1965

115.  Jessie Younghusband School blazer badge

116.  Jessie Younghusband School sports day, 1965

117.  Programme for the official opening of Jessie Younghusband School, 1965

118.  Her Majesty the Queen Mother opening Bishop Luffa School, 1965

119.  Cover of the official programme for the opening of Bishop Luffa School

120.  The new 12th Chichester Scout Headquarters nearing completion in 1969

121.  Scouts and Cubs of the 12th Chichester Group watch Bernard Price open the new headquarters, 1969

122.  Fanny Silverlock, District Guide Captain, being presented with an award, 1963

123.  St John Ambulance Brigade boy cadets, 1964

124.  Cover of 1965 Gala Day programme

125.  1965 Soapbox Derby at County Hall

126.  Another view of the 1965 Soapbox Derby

127.  Pat Silver selling Gala Day cornflowers

128.  1962 Gala Day procession

129.  El Bolero coffee bar in South Street

130.  Granada Cinema, 1966

131.  Granada Cinema kiosk, 1965

132.  North Street with new Victor Value and Sainsbury supermarkets

133.  Bicycle bell top from Chitty’s cycle shop

134.  West Street with Morants department store

135.  Garment label for Morants

136.  New Co-op department store in North Street, 1966

137.  Souvenirs of lost Chichester businesses (bill heads etc.)

138.  Mason’s garage in Southgate, 1959

139.  F.J. French’s wholesale warehouse, Southgate

140.  F.J. French’s after conversion to car showroom for Mason’s garage

141.  Advert for Rowe’s garage, 1962

142.  St Wilfrid’s church after extension in 1965

143.  Notice about 1962 AGM of Swimming Pool Appeal Fund, 1962

144.  Ground and first-floor plans of new swimming pool

145.  Interior of new swimming pool on opening day, 1967

146.  Duke of Richmond opening new swimming pool, 1967

147.  Leaflet giving hours of business and charges for new swimming pool, 1967

148.  Replacement of Lennards’ shoe shop, 1961

149.  New chapel of Bishop Otter College 1962 (Chapel of the Ascension)

150.  Interior of the Chapel of the Ascension

151.  Festival Theatre from the air, 1962

152.  Gillett House, Chichester Theological College

153.  The inside staircase of Gillett House

154.  Flooding in Green Lane and St Pancras, 1960

155.  Snow in St Martin’s Square, December 1962 (the ‘Big Freeze’)

156.  Snowbound East Street, December 1962

157.  Sewer works in Orchard Street halted by the ‘Big Freeze’

158.  Collision between two passenger trains at Drayton, February 1963

159.  Drayton collision with breakdown crane clearing the wreckage

160.  Firemen tackling the blaze at the Chichester Press, March 1960

161.  Jay’s marine shop rebuilt after the fire of 1964

162.  Royal West Sussex Hospital in Broyle Road

163.  The clinic in Chapel Street

164.  Line up of St John Ambulance Brigade vehicles

165.  Dr John Gough in his garden in St John’s Street

166.  Interior of Bastow’s chemist’s shop, No. 9 North Street

167.  Advert for Edward White & Son funeral directors of South Pallant

INTRODUCTION

The 1960s, often lauded as the ‘greatest’ era of the twentieth century, are generally remembered as either a time of welcome liberation from the straight-laced propriety of the first half of the century or an era of great destruction when the hearts were ripped out of our towns and cities in the name of progress. Either way it was a decade of great change – change that was felt right across the land, and even sleepy Chichester was provided with many threats and challenges thereby, as well as gaining some welcome new assets.

It has to be admitted at the outset that Chichester (pronounced by its natives as Chiddester) has always been something of a backwater, never acquiring a fast, direct road or railway link of its own to London and not being en route from London to anywhere more important either. This meant (and still means) lengthy journey times which may be the major reason why it has not undergone the exponential growth of other south coast towns but instead remained pleasantly small. In 1961 its population was 20,118 and it had only risen to 21,170 by 1970; at the time of writing it is some 25,000 but Chichester is now being threatened with unwelcome rapid expansion to satiate the national demand for more housing.

In the 1960s Chichester was still very much a market town. Wednesday was market day, with beast and traders’ markets taking place at the Cattle Market site in Market Road. At this time cattle were still being driven through the streets from the station by colourful drovers. Chichester was also still a garrison town; the large barracks at the top of The Broyle had been home to the Royal Sussex Regiment since 1881, but they relocated to Canterbury in 1960 and, after a gap, the barracks became home to the Royal Military Police (the Recaps) who took up residence in 1964 and entered fully into the life of the city.

Chichester has always been regarded by its younger residents as a dead town where ‘nothing ever happens’, and in the 1960s the young had go to Portsmouth or Brighton (or, even worse, Bognor) for their thrills. Chichester was seen by them to be anything but ‘swinging’. However, the spirit of the 1960s did not entirely pass Chichester by; the city did provide some refuge for the young in its new coffee bars and the jazz club at Fishbourne. Celebrities from the world of rock and roll would appear from time to time, most notably when some of the Rolling Stones were tried here for drugs offences in 1967, an event that emptied out the local girls’ schools whose pupils took the morning off to scream outside the courthouse.

Chichester, as with all cathedral cities, has long had artistic associations, but the opening of Chichester Festival Theatre in 1962 set it on the road of being the city of culture that it is today. That a national theatre could be built – and thrive – in such a one-horse town as Chichester baffled the pundits, but built it was, and it attracted no less a personage than Sir Laurence Olivier as its first director. It remains a popular draw to the city.

Chichester did suffer at the hands of 1960s developers but this was checked sharply by a public backlash over some particularly brutal destruction that took place in 1964 and, three years later, its being adopted by the Minister of Housing and local government as a subject for a conservation study.

Sixties Chichester was a city with tremendous civic pride which engendered great loyalty amongst its citizens, many of whom served it in all sorts of ways. Indeed it was striking how, in the course of the research, the same well-known Chichester names kept cropping up in different connections.

Having been born in 1950, the 1960s were my formative years and I witnessed at first hand how the decade shaped (and, perhaps more importantly, failed to reshape) the City of Chichester. With the eye of an observant schoolboy I watched eagerly all that was going on around me, rejoicing in the constant activity at the railway shunting yard, enjoying the hard winter of 1962/63 and not noticing any particular inconvenience, observing the building of the Festival Theatre and lamenting the running down and final, unnecessary destruction of the east side of Somerstown.

Chichester has been well served by local historians over the years and so some subjects – the building of the Festival Theatre and the fate of Somerstown for example – have already been covered in much detail elsewhere. Where this is the case such subjects have still been included but covered less exhaustively so as to permit more space to be devoted to those that have not; the stories of the creation of the museum, swimming pool and new library, for example, being told here for the first time and in detail.

It is often a moot point as to when a decade actually begins. Technically it should be with the ‘1’ year – i.e. 1961 – and run to 1970, but here I will include all nine of the ‘sixties’ years and, now and again, drift back into the late 1950s and forwards into the early 1970s in order to provide a more complete picture. Consider it to be a long decade, as in ‘the long eighteenth century’.

I did not set out to cover every single aspect of Chichester life in the 1960s, to have done so would have been – for me – an insurmountable task. The choice of what has been included is entirely mine, and naturally (even self-indulgently) I have veered towards those subjects which most interested me or touched me personally in some way during the era in question. To those who have bought the book only to find their pet subject omitted, I apologise.

In this work, documentary research has been backed up by personal memories to produce an account which is primarily evidential, but spiced with memoirs* of the city during the 1960s, hopefully providing some nostalgia along with some long-forgotten facts about Chichester in the Swinging Sixties.

Alan H.J. Green

Chichester, 2015

Note

*    Memoirs, especially when recalled in advancing years, can be notoriously unreliable hence the order of priority.

ONE

PRELUDE: THE

SWINGING SIXTIES

‘If you can remember the 1960s you weren’t really there’ runs an oft quoted, but seemingly unattributed, maxim about the decade that brought an explosion of youth culture: summers of sex, drugs and rock and roll, long hair, free love, the cult of the hippy and, particularly, liberation. As a result of this the sixties have become almost venerated, ushering in, as they did, some of the most significant social changes of the twentieth century – ‘The old order changeth, yielding place to the new’, as King Arthur lamented from his death-barge in Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur.

It was an explosion that was waiting to happen. Post-war austerity meant that rationing had continued into the 1950s with ‘make do and mend’ remaining the order of the day. The Festival of Britain had been held in 1951 and was intended to inject a spirit of optimism into a jaded nation. Chichester took part, in its provincial way, staging its own celebrations over the months of May to October 1951 and in the programme the mayor, Russell Purchase, describing the times as ‘difficult days’, urged Cicestrians* to participate in the projects and activities that had been arranged. Unfortunately the hope of a prosperous new age was slow in coming and the 1950s are irretrievably tinged with an air of dowdiness.

Youth rebellion was a theme that ran throughout the 1960s, sometimes reflected in almost tribal warfare. The most significant manifestation of this was in the ‘Mods and Rockers’ skirmishes. ‘Mods’ rode motor-scooters and ‘Rockers’ fast motorbikes and each was wedded to different varieties of popular music and clothing. In the summer of 1964 swarms of Mods and Rockers descended upon south coast seaside resorts and engaged in pitched battles in which knives were used. In Sussex, Brighton was particularly affected in this respect but I remember seeing such swarms gathering on the green at Littlehampton one Sunday afternoon that year. The family beat a hasty retreat to the station before any trouble broke out.

1. The cover of the programme for Chichester’s Festival of Britain celebrations. (Author’s collection)

THE POLITICS

In 1960 Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government were in power, headed by a prime minister well remembered for his famous epithet ‘The British people have never had it so good.’ Not everyone shared this view however and, unbeknown to him at the time, ‘Supermac’s’ days were numbered in the land. Within a few years he was to be brought down by a series of scandals involving his government ministers.

The first part of the M1 – Motorway One – from London to Birmingham had opened in November 1959 under the Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, whose family construction company – Marples Ridgeway – just happened to have built it. In 1961 Marples commissioned the infamous Beeching Report on the future of British Railways; it was published in March 1963 and set out to prune Britain’s rail network from 21,900 route miles to 16,900 and close 2,363 stations.¹ The future of transport was seen by the government as being in roads not railways; car ownership was increasing rapidly, offering freedom from a life dictated by bus and railway timetables, and a powerful road lobby was emerging to influence parliamentary decisions in this direction. The brief post-war golden age of rail and coach travel was rapidly coming to an end.

Whilst the Beeching Report was being got ready for the printers, the whole country was plunged into chaos by sub-arctic conditions that maintained a heavy covering of snow from Boxing Day 1962 until March 1963. Even the sea froze, and all this took place in an era when comparatively few had central heating – especially here in provincial Chichester – so the ‘Winter of 1962/3’ became legendary. The wartime spirit was revived to keep the country going.

In 1963 a notorious scandal broke involving John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, who was exposed as having a steamy affair with a 19-year-old model, Christine Keeler, whose favours