Bosham

People from around this part of Surrey often mention going down to the Sussex coast for days out - to the Witterings and the area around - and knowing nothing about that region I decided to head down there a couple of weeks ago on my day off. I was aiming for Bosham, I think mainly because an early 20th-century artist we once exhibited at the museum I worked at did a couple of paintings there. The weather was dire when I set off but it cleared considerably by the time I arrived in this rather peculiar place: it's a sort of miniature town, with a tiny 'square' leading off the churchyard and a High Street consisting of about a dozen houses on either side. Most peculiar is the relationship of town to harbour: the harbour road sweeps around the settlement and houses front onto it rather than inland, despite the fact that there is no harbour wall of any kind and the water laps onto the road (where visitors are warned not to park cars). Holy Trinity is the only church I've visited whose weekly news-sheet includes tide times so worshippers can make sure their vehicles are not inundated.

It's a big, impressive, old church which seems to do traditional things with polish and conviction. It doesn't seem anything particularly special from the outside, but within the fabric struck me as exceedingly handsome, with its Norman columns and soaring chancel arch. The deep-set five-light east window with separating columns is rather splendid.

There are some great details, though I wasn't able to find out the significance of these grinning stone beasts carved at the base of a pillar. In view of the usual rule that gargoyles decorate the exterior of churches and angels the inside, these seem a bit out of place. Are they sea-monsters, little Leviathans perhaps (if you can have such a thing)?

The Crypt is merely labelled 'Creche', so I was glad I took the trouble to go and have a look. It is not merely a creche but also perhaps the most reverent and elegant chapel of Our Lady of Walsingham I can remember seeing.

Reinforcing the connection with the Harbour and the life of the sea, there is this rather wonderful gravestone - even if the event it commemorates was anything but. The fatal wind is personified by a putto at top right.

I realised that at Bosham I was only round the corner from Fishbourne Roman Palace, that great monument to Roman Britannia where I'd never been, either, so I popped there. The scale of the site is overwhelming and brings home, in a way I had never really considered, what being a 'client king' of the Empire actually meant. The museum itself is surprisingly old-fashioned, though: it's a long time since I spotted beige hessian in a museum display.