THE EXTERIOR
Of all the cathedral churches of England, Lichfield may be said to be the most lovely. Other cathedrals are larger—indeed, this is the smallest of them all—grander, or more magnificent; but for simple beauty, for charm, for delicacy of construction and appearance, Lichfield may rightly claim to take the foremost place. Peterborough, when we stand inside the west door and look down its line of enormous columns, fills us with awe at its immensity and strength: a feeling which is perhaps a little impaired by the present position of its stalls. Salisbury appeals to us with its perfect simplicity and symmetry, and York with its unequalled grandeur and splendour; but after viewing all the cathedrals of England, it is Lichfield which is most likely to be remembered among them for something which may be most aptly called charm. What can be more delightful than the view which confronts the traveller who, approaching from the town, pauses to look across the sparkling water of the pool at the three graceful spires standing out amid a wealth of green trees and shrubs. Truly a picture to be long remembered. Here is, indeed, the precious jewel set in a silver sea.
Photochrom Co. Ltd., Photo]
The cathedral does not stand on high enough ground for any very fine view of the entire building to be obtained. But from whatever point in the neighbourhood of Lichfield we look we can see its three slender spires, grouping themselves, sometimes so that only two can be distinguished, sometimes so that they all appear in one cluster as though rising from one tower, and sometimes spreading out so that two seem to have very little connection with the third. For years they have been known as the "Ladies of the Vale"; they have looked down on many changes, and indeed have suffered changes themselves. They now rise from an almost new
building—new at any rate in appearance. As we approach the cathedral either from Bird Street and face the west front, or from Dam Street and confront the south side of the Lady Chapel, the same sad feeling comes over us that all here is new. Even as these words are written the south side of the choir is being renovated, and no doubt what little of the old is still left will soon disappear. The west front, with its niches and images, is all new; the south side of the nave is new, and indeed everywhere it is its newness that first strikes one. One cannot help wondering if this extreme severity of restoration is absolutely essential; for if not essential, the vague disappointment might well turn to anger that in days when the art of architecture has become almost non-existent, it should be thought necessary to carry through such wholesale renewal of work, never to be replaced, belonging to the grand days of Gothic building. For this old work can never be replaced: it is a sad thought that in every art, the early groping days, when the new medium or the new method is hardly settled, and its limitations but imperfectly understood, produce the great work. It is so in literature, in music, in painting, in sculpture, and in architecture; but it is only to the last that we dare to offer the assistance of our own less artistic age. The cathedral as we see it to-day has met with many vicissitudes. Of its misfortunes in the Civil Wars much has already been said; and something of its sufferings at the hands of restorers. At present, after studying the west front and contemplating the extreme newness of its every detail, we can only hope that when age has somewhat staled the infinite variety of its modern ornament, future pilgrims to the shrine of St. Chad will not think too unkindly of an age given over to the rigours of restoration.
The Close.—The cathedral stands in a close which was once surrounded by strong walls with bastions and a moat. Nature had supplied the moat on the south side, and the Cathedral Pool, as it is now called, is still there. The artificial moat has been drained, but its course can be easily traced running round the bishop's palace, and its water has been replaced by lovely gardens and gravel walks. Some bits of the old walls remain, the north-east bastion in the palace gardens and a turret on a house at the south corner: the "beautiful gates" of Bishop Langton are gone; but in the Vicars' Close at the west of the cathedral are two small irregular courtyards with houses so old that we feel sure that their wooden beams and plaster were there when the Royalists of the neighbourhood housed themselves within the fortified close.