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

Garrick had not only the amiable qualities of private life, but such astonishing dramatic talents as to well verify the observations of his friend, which have already been quoted (p. [66]), in reference to the memorial of Gilbert Walmesley.

Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, where his father was a bookseller; his shop is still standing, scarcely altered, on the west side of the Market Place, close to the monument of his famous son (see p. [136]). David Garrick came with his parents to live in Lichfield when very young, and he and Johnson attended the Grammar School together. There was a difference of several years in their ages, but their life-long friendship must have begun early, seeing that Johnson wrote the Prologue for Garrick's performance of Farquhar's comedy, "The Recruiting Officer," which took place at the Bishop's Palace when Garrick was only eleven years old. Some years after, when Johnson had left Oxford and had set up a school in the neighbourhood of Lichfield, Garrick joined him as a pupil; but the venture did not prove successful, and master and pupil left Lichfield for London, where each in his own line reached the highest summit of fame.

These memorials stand side by side in the aisle; for some reason, the busts were removed to the library when the interior was being restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, but they have once again been replaced in the spot originally chosen for them. The friendship of Johnson and Garrick was long and cordial: it is fitting we should see that in their death they were not divided.

In this aisle, which until recently was used as the Dean's Consistory Court, is another monument by Westmacott; this is in memory of Andrew Newton, who was so munificent a friend to his native Lichfield. He founded the institution on the west side of the close for the widows and orphans of clergymen, which he also endowed; and on his death, in 1806, he left a library of books to the cathedral.

In the first bay of the aisle is a monument to the officers and men of the 80th Regiment (Staffordshire Volunteers). The design is Egyptian, and is surmounted by a sphinx. Over the monument hang colours taken from the Sikhs, and on the wall behind are the old regimental colours. At the south end is a very fine and costly altar tomb—to Admiral Sir William Parker, who, when he died in 1866, was the last survivor of Nelson's captains. The slab of Pyrenean jasper is inlaid with a gold cross, and the front is adorned with stones of porphyry and lapis lazuli. The window above has some of the Herkenrode glass left over from the Lady Chapel, together with some modern glass. The great south window, which, as has just been stated, is in the Perpendicular style, was in 1895 adorned with new glass; this was the gift of Mr A. P. Heywood-Lonsdale, in memory of his father and his uncle, Bishop Lonsdale. The subject is "I am the vine, ye are the branches," and represents Our Lord in the centre surrounded by angels, with the principal bishops of the Early Christian Church. The six early British bishops: St. Columba, Scotland; St. Wulstan, Worcester; St. Chad, Lichfield; St. Augustine, Canterbury; St. Aidan, Northumbria; St. Hugh, Lincoln, are at the feet of Our Lord. The other bishops are St. Basil, Caesarea; St. Cyril, Jerusalem; St. Patrick, Ireland; St. Ignatius, Antioch; St. Polycarp, Smyrna; St. Boniface, Germany; St. Martin, Tours; St. David, Wales; St. Gregory, Rome; St. Augustine, Hippo; St. Athanasius, Alexandria; St. Cyprian, Carthage; St. Isidore, Spain; St. Chrysostom, Constantinople; St. Ambrose, Milan; and St. Vigilius, Aries. This glass is by Mr C. E. Kempe. On the west side are several brasses and tablets, including one to John Saville, vicar choral of the cathedral, who died in 1803. The lines underneath are by the Miss Seward whose own memorial is in the north aisle of the nave; they, like so much of the elegiac poetry of the period, owe not only their style, but a good many of their phrases, to the poet Gray.

The Choir, with the presbytery and retro-choir—that is to say, the whole extent of that part of the cathedral between the central tower and the entrance to the Lady Chapel—has eight bays. The most noticeable difference between it and the nave, is the absence of a triforium. Professor Willis says: "The entire height of the severey (or bay) is divided into two nearly equal parts, of which the lower is given to the pier arches, the upper to the clerestory. The window-sills of the latter are high, and there is a passage in front of them immediately above the tablement or string course over the pier arches. This passage, the veritable triforium, pierces the great piers of masonry which sustain the vault. The high sills receive the sloping roof of the side aisles, and have three plain open arches in each severey to air the roof." These sills are panelled with a foliated arcading, and in front of the passage there is an open trefoil work parapet. The effect of the windows inside is much enhanced by the lovely quatrefoil ornamentation with which their splays are decorated. In the single window—the east on the south side—where the original tracery remains, it is very beautiful and graceful, and is a good example of the Decorated period; but into the other windows Perpendicular tracery has been introduced.

The vaulting is very much the same as in the nave, but the vaulting shafts divide into seven instead of five ribs. The bosses, as everywhere else in the cathedral, are very deeply and richly carved.

On the four eastern sets of piers long slender shafts run up from the base of the piers in the same way as in the nave, and similarly the spandrels are ornamented with foliated circles, of which nearly all trace had disappeared before the recent restoration. This, however, is not the arrangement on the three western pairs. It was found here that these shafts did not reach the ground; and so Sir Gilbert Scott, having discovered a portion of the sculptured wing of an angel just above the dean's present stall, decided upon finishing the shafts with corbels in the form of angels occupied in minstrelsy. Above each of these angels—which were innovations—he placed, under richly crocketted canopies and standing on very finely-carved brackets, the figures of six saints. These were not innovations, though no signs of them appear in the engraving in Britton's "Cathedrals," where, indeed, the incomplete shafts just mentioned are to all appearance complete. But in Pennant's "Journey from Chester to London," 1782, the six statues are mentioned, and he tells us not only their names, but also that they were richly painted. The new statues represent the same original characters: St. Mary, St. Mary Magdalene, and St. Peter on the north side; St. James, St. Philip, and St. Christopher on the south: these with their niches have been executed partly from the old description of them and partly by reference to the niches remaining in the Lady Chapel.

An investigation of the roof proved that its bosses had been originally profusely gilded and painted, and that the ribs had been painted in tri-colour, though, oddly enough, this apparently had not been the case in the Lady Chapel. Mr Dyce, R.A., was called in to give an opinion, and suggested a large scheme, upon which he actually started, but after having proceeded only a small way, difficulties arose and he departed. What little paint had been applied to the ribs was removed; but a few of the more easterly bosses remain gilt to this day, and afterwards the others were reddened to bring out the sculpture.