Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Lichfield / A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Espicopal See

by A. B. Clifton

The close is not large, and of course, as Lichfield is a cathedral of the old establishment, there are no monastical buildings, no ruined cloisters. On the north side the ground rises rapidly in a grassy slope to a terrace, behind which are some of the canons' houses. Opposite the north transept is the deanery, a substantial red brick house in the style of the middle of the last century; next to it, and farther east, is the bishop's palace.

The Bishop's Palace is of stone, and was built by Thomas Wood, the bishop who succeeded Hacket, and who is said to have been compelled to erect it as a fine for his neglect of the diocese. It bears on the front the date 1687. The old palace of Bishop Langton, which occupied the same position in the close, was swept away in the Civil Wars. The bishops of Lichfield had another palace at Eccleshall until the time of Bishop Selwyn, who sold it, and with a portion of the money erected here the two unsightly wings and the still more unsightly chapel. In the palace gardens, in the south-west corner, stood the old bell-tower of the cathedral, of whose destruction in 1315 we have a record. From the bishop's garden there is a charming view through the trees of Stowe pool and St. Chad's Church apparently standing at its farther edge: its old towers stand out finely, and the gravestones in the churchyard remind us that in far-off Mercian days St. Chad was laid to rest in this very spot.

On the east side of the close is an unsightly white house which rises a blot on the otherwise beautiful view of the cathedral from Stowe; next to it is a charming old building with the turret already mentioned.

On the south side is the entrance from Dam Street, with an old house at the corner. On this side also is the Theological College, a low ordinary-looking building, said to have been originally training-stables for race horses; and farther west are more houses of the cathedral clergy. And behind all these is the pool. One cannot help agreeing with Britton in thinking what a delightful thing it would be for the close if all the houses on this side could be pulled down so that the cathedral might have nothing but grass and trees between it and the pool. Britton gives an imaginary view of the south side with all the houses cleared away.

On the west side of the cathedral is another entrance to the close, which runs between the Vicars' Close already mentioned and the hideous college built by Andrew Newton for the widows and orphans of clergymen.

The Cathedral is built of new red sandstone from quarries in the immediate neighbourhood of Lichfield itself. On Borrowcop, to the north (where tradition says two Mercian kings were killed, to be afterwards buried in the close), is the hole left by the cathedral; and on the other side, at Wheel Lane, is a quarry from which much stone, both red and white, has been taken for the recent repairs to the fabric. Its ruddy colour adds much to the picturesqueness of the building.

Mrs Van Rensselaer, in her interesting account of the English cathedrals, says: "In any and every aspect, but more especially when foliage comes close about it, Lichfield's colour assists its other beauties. Grey is the rule in English churches—dark cold grey at Ely, for example; light yellow grey at Canterbury, and pale pearly grey at Salisbury; and although dark greyness means great solemnity and grandeur, and light greyness great delicacy and charm, they both need the hand of time—the stain of the weather and the web of the lichen—to give them warmth and tone; and the work of the hand of time has almost everywhere in England been effaced by the hand of the restorer. Red stone is warm and mellow in itself, and Lichfield is red with a beautiful soft ruddiness that could hardly be over-matched by the sandstone of any land."

The plan of the cathedral shows a simple cross, with a chapter-house (joined by a vestibule to the choir) on the north side, and a sacristy on the south side. It may also be noticed that the nave and the choir (including the presbytery) have each eight bays or severies, and that if we regard the bay under the central tower as a double one, the two transepts together have eight bays. Thus the transverse arm of the cross is nearly of the same length as the eastern and the western arms. There is a Lady Chapel at the eastern end of the choir, and there are aisles on each side of the nave and choir and on the eastern side of the transepts.

We have already seen that the cathedral has three Spires, and this is perhaps its most notable characteristic, for Lichfield is the only church now existing in England with this distinction. The cathedral at Coventry, so long the sister church of the diocese, and so ruthlessly destroyed by Henry VIII., had also three spires; as had Ripon Minster, but these were of lead, and have since been pulled down.

Of the spires, one rises from the central tower and one surmounts each of the towers which flank the west front. The central spire dates only from the Restoration, the older spire having been entirely destroyed in the Civil Wars. There is no doubt that the original spire was different in appearance to the present one, which is an imitation of the western spires, carried out in the spirit of the Perpendicular style. What the earlier spire was really like is doubtful, neither is it quite certain when it was built, though the central tower was probably rebuilt about 1250, when it is supposed that the intention was to retain the Norman nave. What the height and pitch of the roof of the old Norman nave must have been can be seen from the old housing course which remains to this day above the nave groining. "It was the custom," as Mr J. O. Scott explained in a lecture on the cathedral, "of old builders, as of modern builders, to insert in any wall against which a roof abuts a projecting course of stone, called a 'housing,' following the slope of the roof, the object being to keep the wet from getting in between the roof and the wall. And so when the central tower was rebuilt, there was the Norman nave to which the new work had to be fitted. Hence, at this time the builders inserted a 'housing course' of masonry into the west wall of the new tower, to protect the junction of the old Norman nave roof from the weather." These disused housing courses can constantly be seen in old churches, sometimes several, one above the other, showing the changes in the roofing of the church. The present spire is said vaguely to have been erected from the designs or under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren; but the tradition which connects this great modern architect with the cathedral is very uncertain.