Travelling here:
The conference will be held at The Palace, Canon Lane, Chichester, PO19 1PY. There is onsite free parking for up to 20 cars. If you are travelling by public transport, The Palace is a short walk from the city train and bus stations, both of which have good connections from London, and from Gatwick, being the nearest international airport. See https://www.visitchichester.org/getting-here for more information.
Where to stay:
For a selection of local hotels, self-catering lets, and BnB options, many within walking distance of the Palace, see https://www.visitchichester.org/where-to-stay-overview.
For central budget accommodation, try Travelodge Chichester Central, Chapel Street, PO19 1DL.
For a more refined stay, https://www.harbourhotels.co.uk/hotels/chichester/
North Street, PO19 1NH.
Luxury break at the 4-star Goodwood Hotel, PO18 0PX, set in the countryside of Goodwood Estate (and featuring the Cass Sculpture Park), a 20-minute drive from the Palace.
The Bishop’s Palace, Chichester
The venue for the main conference programme, The Palace adjoins Chichester Cathedral’s precinct in the centre of Chichester, Sussex. Home to the Bishop of Chichester, the Palace rooms were originally built at about the same time as the Cathedral, when the centre of the South Saxon See (Diocese) was moved from Selsey to Chichester, following the Norman Conquest. After a fire in 1187, the earliest remaining elements of the medieval Palace are the Great Kitchen, the Chapel and its adjoining sacristy. These rooms will be made available to delegates during the conference, with the Great Kitchen presenting a contemporary art installation, by invitation for the occasion, and the Chapel housing fine examples of medieval and modern-period wall-painting. These latter include the famous Chichester Roundel, a painting of the Virgin and Child dating from 1225-1250, and the Ascension of Christ, completed in 1953 by Hans Feibusch, a German refugee who found patronage from Bishop George Bell during the Second World War.
Accommodating the paper presentations is The Sherborne Room. This is the west wing of the Palace, and was built during Bishop Robert Sherborne’s tenure in around 1530. Originally a dining room, the Sherborne Room contains examples of painting by local artist Lambert Barnard (1485-1567), including a particularly fine panelled ceiling. These panels primarily honour King Henry VIII and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, with the accompanying wall panels representing the Heroines of Antiquity (c.1526), originally for nearby Amberley Castle. Other local examples of Barnard’s paintings can be seen in Chichester Cathedral and Boxgrove Priory.
The Chapel, University of Chichester
The venue for the conference dinner, The Chapel of the Ascension at the University of Chichester is situated just outside the city walls, a short walk from the Palace. Designed by Peter Shepheard, the building of the Chapel was completed in 1962 at the instigation of the Principal Betty Murray, head of the formerly named Bishop Otter College, a teacher training college. Along with Head of Art, Sheila McCririck, the pair steered a formidable enterprise in championing, commissioning and collecting art work for the expanding college, beginning what was to become the Bishop Otter Art Collection, a collection of some 200 post-war art works in a variety of media from such leading British figures as Peter Lanyon, Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, and Stanley Spencer. Amongst the items commissioned for the Chapel were the abstract sculpture by Geoffrey Clarke (untitled, 1962) in cast aluminium for the exterior, and the 7m-high tapestry Creation (1963) by Jean Lurçat for the altar wall. The conference dinner will include a tour of the collection by Visiting Professor at the Otter Gallery, Dr Gill Clarke, and a musical performance by students at the University.