Oxmarket Gallery, est. 1976 and a registered charity, offers modern exhibition space within a beautiful and atmospheric historic building in the heart of Chichester.
We are a hub for artists, craftspeople and designers of all kinds and a destination for lovers of art, craft and design.
Our Story
Our building is medieval deconsecrated church, formerly St Andrew’s in the Oxmarket, which has existed since the 13th century and was used as a church continuously until the mid 20th century, when wartime damage forced its closer. Between 1971 and 1976, the building was restored and converted into an arts centre opening as Chichester Centre of Arts, later renamed to Oxmarket Centre of Arts. In 1989, the church was extended using rubble stone.
In 2020 planning permission was given for further renovations to be made to the building in order to modernise the space and created a new enlarged entrance.
REFRESH: Upgrading and Modernising
REFRESH was a major fundraising project for Oxmarket, whose mission is to promote art and support artists in an inclusive manner. Oxmarket provides a range of flexible, quality and accessible exhibition spaces for artists, craftspeople and designers. It curates exhibitions and runs events designed to encourage emerging artists to develop their practice. The REFRESH project cost £260,000.
Oxmarket Gallery is housed in a Grade II listed, deconsecrated medieval church. Based in Chichester, West Sussex, it is a volunteer run charity which hosts more than 150 high-quality exhibitions a year.
It opened in 1976 and had very little refurbishment since then. This much-loved community facility needed urgent updating to ensure the Gallery spaces continue to meet the needs of its users and visitors, and to safeguard its sustainability going forward. It needed to upgrade the facilities and increase gallery space, replace the toilets and include a disabled toilet, improve the entrance area and remedy the lack of external and internal signage.
We started Phase 1 in January 2021 and reopened to the public in April 2021.
With thanks to our major donors
Arthur Williams Charitable Trust
Ascia Construction
Martyn and Mookda Bell
Bassil Shippam and Alsford Trust
Colin and Renata Baillieu
Tim Bouquet and Sarah Mansell
Bernard Buckley and Chris Casburn
Chichester City Council
Chichester District Council
The Sussex Foundation
John and Susan Coldstream
Louise and Charles Cameron
Cover Storey Architects LLP
Pam and Tony Dignum
Garfield Weston Foundation
Suzanna Gayford
Mark and Meera Hewitt
Sophie Hull
Philip and Jean Jackson
Liz Juniper and Jilly Styles
Mark and Jan Mackaness
Elizabeth and Jerome O’Hea
Sybil Papworth
Denise Patterson
Guy Powell
John Rank
Paul and Ingrid Rigg
John Robinson
Greg and Katherine Slay
Jane and Ken Wilkie
Lady Wright
And all those who wished to remain anonymous.
Our Building
St Andrew-in-the-Oxmarket Church is a former Anglican church in the centre of the cathedral city of Chichester in West Sussex, England. The building has existed since the 13th century and was used as a church from then until the mid 20th century, when wartime damage forced it to close. Historic England has listed the building at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance.
It is situated off East Street (accessible by two alleyways) in central Chichester. Historically, the church was the property of the Dean of Chichester, and the church owned much land in the area until the Reformation. Additions to the church were made in the 14th, 15th and 19th centuries. The north window of the church depicts Saint Cecilia, and the south window of the church has a tribute to poet William Collins, who is buried in the church.
In 1878, the parish of All Saints-in-the-Pallant, a former church which was also built in the 13th-century, was merged into the St Andrew-in-the-Oxmarket parish. In 1943, during the Second World War, St Andrew-in-the-Oxmarket Church was badly damaged by bombing. The congregation moved into the unused All Saints-in-the-Pallant church. The church was deconsecrated in the 1950s, by which time it was disused and empty.
In the 1960s, Archdeacon of Chichester Lancelot Mason proposed turning the church into an art gallery as Chichester had no galleries at the time.
As well as the church itself, a wall to the north of the church is also Grade II listed. The church, a small building which "in scale [is] exactly like churches in nearby villages", is built of stone and flint. The outside walls are rendered apart from at the east end, where the quoins are of stone dressed with ashlar, and the west end which is supported by substantial buttresses. The stonework which has been obscured by render includes some reused fragments of herringbone pattern work of the Norman era and rubble taken from the demolished Roman walls around the city centre. The windows, all lancets, vary in date from 13th to 19th century; the three-light east window dates from the latter. The doorway at the west end is 14th century. On the roof is a weatherboarded bell-cot topped with a short broach spire. Inside, the plan is simple: a nave and chancel with no chancel arch or structural division. There is a wooden gallery, and the timber roof is 19th-century. The extension of 1989 was designed by architect Peter Fleming and consists of a two-bay projection with glazed gables, built onto the north wall.
