BOSHAM

High Tide at Bosham

BOSHAM (pronounced ‘Bozam’) is a small village on the West Sussex coast approximately 5 miles from Chichester.

It has a long and fascinating history. It is claimed that King Can King_Canute ute had a palace in Bosham, and that it was on the seashore here that, in the early 11th Century, he demonstrated that, unlike the power of God, the power of a king was not supreme. He is said to have done this by standing on the shore line and commanding the sea to recede – apparently without success!

It is more certain, or so a memorial in Bosham’s Church of the Holy Trinity states, that King Canute’s daughter, Gunhilda, was interred in the church after, legend has it, she drowned in the nearby mill stream. (There is a photograph of the church memorial plaque in the gallery below).

Whatever the truth of these historical claims, it is certain that Bosham is one of the most delightful waterside villages on the south coast of England. The inlet of the sea here is constantly alive with sea craft of all kinds. The houses and gardens surrounding the lower shore road are all delightful, and a walk along it, whether at low or high tide, is endlessly fascinating. Twice every day the tide comes in and partially covers this road which surrounds the inlet of Chichester Harbour on which Bosham stands. The spring tides in particular can be extremely high with resulting flooding of much of the Shore Road. Warning signs remind visitors that cars unwisely parked on this lower road are liable to be caught out by the incoming tides. When the tide is out, numerous birds (such as egrets, curlews, black-headed gulls) can be spotted patrolling the foreshore and the exposed seabed. Wild samphire also grows abundantly around the margins of the shore.