CHICHESTER, a municipal and parliamentary borough and Episcopal city in Sussex, 17+ m. e.n.e. of Portsmouth. It stands on a plain between an arm of the sea and the South Downs, which rise gently on the north. It is well built, and has wide streets. The two main streets cross at right angles, and meet in an elaborately-worked eight-sided cross. Within the suburbs the city is surrounded by an ancient wall, m. in circuit, with some semicircular bastions, and now a promenade under the shade of elms.. The cathedral, erected in the 12th and 13th centuries, on the site of a wooden one founded 1108, and burned 1114, measures 410 by 227 ft., with a spire 300 ft. high. The aisles are double—a mode of construction to be seen nowhere else in Britain. The cathedral has a rich choir, and portraits of the English sovereigns from the conquest to George I., and of the bishops down to the reformation. The chief trade is in agricultural produce,
and live-stock. There are 'nailing, brewing, and tanning establishments. Pop. '71, 9,054. C. returns one member to parliament. The harbor, 2 m. to the s.w. of the city, is a deep inlet of the English channel, of about S sq.m. ; has several creeks and Thorny isle; and is connected with C. by a canal. C. was the Roman Regnunt, and has afforded Roman remains—as a mosaic pavement, coins, urns, and an inscription of the dedica tion of a temple to Neptune and Minerva. C. was taken and partly destroyed, in 491, by the South Saxons. It was soon after rebuilt by Cissa, their king, and called Cissan caster, or Cissa's camp. It was for some time the capital of the kingdom of Sussex. In 1642, the royalists of C. surrendered to the parliamentarians, after a siege of ten days.