The original Norman church here was cruciform.  Of this building we still see the tower, the transepts and the lower part of what remains of the nave, and the arcade to the south.  This Norman church was greatly enlarged in the twelfth century, when the nave now destroyed was built, the tower piers were then cased in the Transitional style and the arches which carry the tower were altered.  Later, about 1235, the chancel we see and its aisles, as lovely as anything in southern England, were added in the Early English style, that often reminds one of Chichester Cathedral.  To the fourteenth century belong the south porch and more than one window in the aisles, while the font and other windows are Perpendicular.

I had often read of the unique vaulting of the choir of Boxgrove Priory, but the twilight was so deep in the church, for it was already evening, that I could not see it.  I saw, however, the empty tomb, very fine and splendid, of the Earl de la Warr, who begged Boxgrove of Thomas Cromwell unsuccessfully; and then I went out and marched on into Chichester, the East Gate of which I entered not long after dark.

CHAPTER XV

CHICHESTER

The mere plan of Chichester proclaims its Roman origin.  It is a little walled city lying out upon the sea plain of Sussex, cruciform by reason of its streets, North Street, South Street, East Street, and West Street, which divide it into four quarters, of which that upon the south became wholly ecclesiastical:  the south-west quarter being occupied by the Cathedral and its subject buildings, while the south-east quarter was the Palatinate of the Archbishop.  As for the quarter north-east it was appropriated to the Castle and its dependencies, of which however, nothing remains, while the quarter north-west was occupied by the townspeople, and to-day contains their parish church of St Peter Major.  These four quarters meet at the Market Cross, whence the streets that divide the city set out for the four quarters of the world.

To come into Chichester to-day even by the quiet red-brick street—­ South Street—­from the railway station, the least interesting entry into the city, is to understand at once what Chichester is; one of those country towns that is to say, cities in the good old sense, because they were the seat of the Bishop, which are not only the pride of England, but perhaps the best things left to her and certainly the most characteristic of all that she truly means and stands for.  If such places are without the feverish and confused life of the great industrial centres of modern England, let us thank God for it, they have nevertheless a quiet vitality of their own, which in the long run will prove more persistent and strong than the futile excitement of places noisy with machinery and wretched with the enslaved poor.  Such places as Chichester may indeed stand for England in a way that Manchester, for instance, with its cosmopolitan