Billy Fiske

Explorer Tom Chichester Cathedral stands inside its Sussex city with a spire that once made an unscheduled and very public exit. The church's story began when the bishop's seat moved here from Selsey in the eleventh century, and its medieval fabric still frames worship and art today. Do not hurry past the building looking for a single century; Chichester has more than one up its sleeve. The Norman cathedral developed into a complex Gothic church, with later builders and generations of worshippers leaving their marks. Parliamentary forces damaged it during the English Civil War, and restoration followed after the monarchy returned. Then cracks in the central tower became a crisis: tower and spire collapsed in 1861. Sir George Gilbert Scott oversaw rebuilding, and the cathedral reopened for worship in 1866. Standing beneath the present spire, remember that the silhouette is a determined act of repair. The building also made room for modern art. Marc Chagall's stained-glass window, dedicated in 1978, uses colour and figures to respond to Psalm 150 and the theme of the arts praising God. Works by Graham Sutherland and John Piper add other twentieth-century voices. The cathedral remains a working church, so art, music and prayer share the same walls. Look for the old stone first, then notice where newer artists have answered it. I imagine the replacement spire telling the original one that dramatic exits are no way to win an audience. That conversation is all Tom; the collapse and rebuilding are real. Walk the close, step inside, and let Chichester show you how a place can keep standing by accepting change.