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Bosham is a beautiful place to visit, with
plenty of
accommodation, pubs and
sports facilities including
cricket and football grounds, Bowling,
Sailing and many
Clubs
and Societies. The Village stands on a small
peninsula between two tidal creeks at the eastern end of
Chichester harbour.
As well as providing an excellent sanctuary for migrating wildfowl it is
a wonderful centre for
sailing with
literally hundreds of moorings for
boats
and yachts. Artists, walkers and weekenders love the place and year
round it draws visitors like a magnet, particularly those with a sense
of history...
Bosham
has a rich History. Originally called "Bosanhamm,
in the province of the South Saxons in the Earldom of Wessex", where else would you find in a local parish church
the original chancel that is depicted and named in the Bayeux Tapestry,
with Harold entering it to pray before crossing the Channel from these
very waters more than 900 years ago to parley about the English throne
with William of Normandy.
An earlier king, Canute of the "turn back the
tide" story also knew Bosham well. The body of a young girl, discovered
in a small Saxon coffin when the church floor was being renewed in 1865,
was almost certainly that of Canute's daughter who was drowned in an
adjoining brook.
In fact the Danish King had a palace at Bosham, probably where
the
Manor House now stands or possibly at the
harbour
edge. He was continually being told how all powerful he was and he
decided that his courtiers needed a practical lesson in his mortality
and to demonstrate that he was just a King and nothing more he placed
his throne at the edge of the sea probably where the
Quay now stands and
commanded that the waves should stop. Obviously they didn't.
King
Canute's young daughter was buried in Bosham
church
in 1020, she drowned when she slipped and fell into the
millstream.
Canute himself died in 1035, Harold I Canute's illegitimate son was then
elevated to King by popular demand. His reign was a short one, he came
to the throne on 1037 and died in 1040. With the support of Earl Godwin,
Edward the Confessor, a regular visitor to the Godwin's home in Bosham, became king in 1042. In 1066 Edward became ill and
died. Godwin then placed his son
Harold II ("Godwinson") on the throne.
Earl Godwin lived in Bosham, as did Harold himself (prior to becoming
earl of East Anglia). Godwin was the real power in the country and he
ruthlessly murdered anyone who had claim to the throne....
more about Bosham
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