100th birthday party helps launch Chichester’s newest arts venue

The city’s former St Bartholomew’s Church in Westgate, the former chapel to the old theological college, has now opened its doors as the Chichester City Arts Centre. And it did so with a birthday party for Maud Prichard, grandmother of Rosemary Bell who set it all up. Rosemary has run the Rosemary Bell Academy of Dance in Chichester for the past 12 years. She has now created the Chichester City Arts Centre as the school’s permanent home, but she is also keen to hire it out to other groups and organisations.

“We had one lady who wanted to do a little music video for herself in there and we also had yoga teachers and Pilates teachers inquiring.”

It's a project that took a couple of years to bring to fruition but Rosemary is delighted with the results: “It feels amazing in there. When the ballet kids arrived on the first day with their parents it was fantastic to see all the reactions as they walked in. We have kept the decor really traditional. We've kept the key features of the building and it is a really neutral space that anybody could use. The ballet school is the big booking obviously but we didn't decorate it in such a way that the ballet takes over. It has got white walls and a high ceiling and big windows and it is lovely. It feels like a church and you recognise it as a church but really it is just a wonderfully big space that all sorts of people can use, and I love the fact that it is so well located. When I'm working there I can just walk into town and it's just a stone's throw from the cathedral.”

Rosemary and her family bought the building for an undisclosed sum and will run it as a family business: “We had been looking for premises for a long time and St Bartholomew's came up. Before we had hired Portfield Primary Academy and also used Westhampnett Community Hall, but we had been thinking about trying to get our own premises for a long time and hoping that the right property would come up. And then my mum was watching something like Homes Under The Hammer on TV and saw something about a church conversion. She googled churches for sale in Chichester and St Bartholomew's popped up. We went to look at it and a lot of people were interested. We put in a bid and we had to be chosen as the preferred bidder. It was owned by the Church Commissioners and they wanted something that would be appropriate to the building and positive for the community and they decided that we fitted.”

Rosemary understands that it was hired by Chichester College from about 2005 to 2015 but was completely empty since then and had stopped being a practising church open to the public in the 1950s. The building dates from the 1830s. “It is a beautiful building and I just can't see people not wanting to use it. It is an unbelievable building, and I do believe that it will be a very popular venue. We're looking forward to seeing whatever the community wants to do there.” Rosemary has run her Academy for 12 years and has around 250 students: “We would be hoping to increase that number with the prestige of having our own venue.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​