A brief history of the Parish of Rumboldswyke - Part 1: before 1902

By Ken Green

The name Rumboldswyke derives from the Old English 'Rumbold's Wik' a 'wik' being a farm, It seems therefore that the earliest habitation may have been a pre-conquest settlement around property owned by Rumbold, a farmer.

St. Mary's Church is of the characteristic two cell design of Anglo-Saxon churches with a chancel at the east end for the priest and containing the altar, with a larger nave to the west for the worshippers. These two spaces are joined by a chancel arch, which at St. Mary's is of 11th century Norman construction, making it contemporary with Chichester Cathedral.

Wyke is mentioned in Doomsday Book where it was held by 'five men as five manors'. In 1086 it was held under Earl Roger de Montgomery. By the thirteenth century Rumboldswyke was a small hamlet, the priest lived in the thatched priest's house near to the church. Members of the de Wykes family were lords of the Manor of Rumboldswyke from 1274 until 1317.

In the early Middle Ages priests were often of humble origins, poorly educated and unlikely to be men of wealth. They carried out their duties of baptising, marrying and burying the parishioners who probably could mostly be categorised as peasants. The priests farmed the glebe land owned by the church to supplement their income. A mill is mentioned as being in the parish in 1228 and again in 1340 when the vicar had the mill tithes of two shillings a year. The church was the centre of such village life as there was, being used, in addition to worship, for public meetings, as a market place and for occasional merry-making.

There was a small lazar-house or leper hospital within the parish in the early 14th Century. At that time William de Kainesham gave money to the 'lepers of Wikes' in his will and in 1374 John de Bishopstone, the Chancellor of the Cathedral gave in his will to the 'Hospital of Newykestrete', thought to be the same establishment. Before then, going back to 1250 the street from Chichester to Rumboldswyke, now the Hornet, was called Newick Street.

The names of the earliest priests of the parish are not known the first record being that of "Dominum Ralph" shown in Bishop Rede's register of 1397. IN 1400 father Ralph applied for permission to erect an altar in St. Mary's to St. Rumbold. At that time many pilgrims were making their way to the shrine of St. Richard in the Cathedral which had been erected in 1391. The coincidence of St. Rumbold's name with that of the Parish must have seemed too good an opportunity for Father Ralph to miss and he may have hoped to encourage those visiting the Cathedral to come to his church.

In medieval times it was the practice for the Cathedral choir to be made up of a dozen or so ordained priests known as vicars choral, who carried out the daily round of services held in the Cathedral. The vicars choral were often given appointments in local parishes and most of the Rectors of Rumboldswyke during this age were simultaneously so employed. They would have lived in the Cathedral precincts, either in the Vicars' Hall or in the houses in Vicars' Close. This is confirmed by noting that, on their demise, they were often buried in the Subdeanery Churchyard

In 1551 John Mekyngs was the Parish Rector and also a vicar choral in the Cathedral. In July that year he was brought before the Dean and Chapter charged with not only to have uttered insulting words in the Close against Anthony Clerke, the Prebendary of Firle but to have struck him with his fist, he was given a warning. His misdemeanours must have persisted as in 1555 he was deprived of his position as Rector, although the reason for this not recorded.

Robert Randall BA. had been appointed as a cathedral chorister in 1615 but dismissed in 1616 as being 'insufficient in singing and unlikely ever to be otherwise'. He was presented to Rumboldswyke in 1636 but was ejected in 1642 during the Civil War.

Chichester was besieged by parliamentary troops during the Civil War in 1642, as a result the Cathedral was damaged and the churches of St. Bartholomew at Westgate and St. Pancras at Eastgate were completely destroyed. During the time of the Commonwealth government the churchwarden of Rumboldswyke was William Cawley.

Cawley was a Member of Parliament for Chichester, a leading figure in the puritan cause and one of the signatories of the death warrant of King Charles I. In 1605 he had endowed almshouses in Broyle Road Chichester. In St. Mary's he had a pulpit built so that the puritan ministers, who were 'intruded' as rectors, could deliver their republican tirades. Cawley had a carved panel attached to the pulpit announcing that he had paid for it, this panel is now set into the wall of the study in Brandram House.

At the time of the restoration of the monarchy Cawley fled to the Continent. It appears that in exile Cawley often expressed his wish that on his death his body should be returned to the City of his birth and buried in the chapel of the almshouses he had founded so many years before. However feeling against the regicides was so strong that there was no question of even his body being allowed back into the country. He died in the Swiss town of Vernay in 1680 and was buried there.

However in 1816 whilst repairing the floor of the chapel to Cawley's almshouses a vault was discovered by workmen, in it were two coffins and a body wrapped in lead. It was almost certainly that of Cawley whose body had been smuggled into the country and secretly buried in accordance with his wishes, Today a small stone plaque marks the spot in the Chapel where his remains have been re-interred,

In 1865 Stenning Johnson BA was appointed to the parish. He came at a time of great change in the area, the railway had been built through the parish in 1846, much building was taking place and Rumboldswyke was becoming more of a suburb of Chichester than the hamlet that it had been when his predecessor had taken office. It was through his efforts that St. Mary's Church was extended in 1866 by the removal of part of the north wall and the building of the North Aisle. He resigned in 1883.


Reverend Stenning Johnson BA - Rector of Rumboldswyke 1865-1883.

The next rector was Thomas Peele Brandram, In 1884 he built the first Rectory house, now Brandram House, on glebe land in Whyke Road. He also had the plans drawn up for the building of St. George's. The parish of Rumboldswyke became part of the Chichester City Corporation's area in 1893.

His memorial brass on the wall of the North Side Aisle states that despite suffering from a fatal disease for over a year Father Brandram carried on his work until death in 1896.

When Brandram's successor, Charles Lax Farthing, took the living he was told that he was to build the new church as the parish had continued to grow rapidly to the North of the railway. It is said that to do this he enlisted the Bishop's support by the expedient of getting him soaking wet on the way from the Rectory to St. Mary's for a Confirmation.

By 1902 St. George's had been planned, built (on still more glebe land) and paid for, largely by very small gifts from the pockets of the local people. Initially it was very basic having no porches, no choir vestry, and only the tiny organ from St. Mary's. The old church was no longer to be used, except for funerals. Thus Charles Farthing became the first Rector of St. George's, the East Window and the Lady Chapel panelling are his memorial.

Continued on the next page.