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 About Bosham



Bosham Village seen from the North

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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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