Its length is 92 feet, 10 inches; the length of the North and South fronts, 98 feet each: the walls are 50 feet in heighth.
Somewhat resembling the architecture of the Old, is the New Castle, adjoining to it on the East side, built with Scotch granite in the year 1793; apparently of great strength and durability.
The Castle-Hill appears to have been raised by art, with incredible labour: it stands nearly in the center of the city, and commands an agreeable prospect of the surrounding buildings, interspersed with gardens, which, with the adjacent country and river, form a most delightful landscape.
Since the addition of the Gardens round the bottom of the Hill, strangers have acknowledged the view from the summit to be superior to any thing of the kind in Europe, and have justly styled Norwich ‘The City in an Orchard.’
In the Shire-House, which adjoins the Castle on the North side, the Summer Assizes and Quarter-Sessions are held, and other county business transacted.
THE CATHEDRAL
Was founded by Bishop Herbert in 1096, and was chiefly composed of wood, which, by various accidents, and the turbulence of the times, was often greatly damaged.
The present Cathedral is a fine Gothic free-stone building, brought to the magnificent state in which it now appears by the bounty of numerous benefactors, at various times, and completed by William Middleton, the thirty-sixth Bishop, in the year 1284. The roof is adorned with various well-carved images, from the historical passages of scripture. On the windows at the East end of the church is most curiously painted the transfiguration, and the twelve apostles, by Dean Lloyd’s lady.
The shaft, or spire, is handsome and well proportioned. Except Salisbury, it is the highest in the kingdom, being 105 yards, 2 feet, from the pavement to the top of the pinnacle, strongly built with free-stone on the outside and brick within. The top stone of the spire consists of half a globe, 1 yard, 2 inches broad, with a channel round it; whence extend eight leaves of stone, spreading outward, under which commence the eight rows of crockets, continued down the spire, at 5 feet distance from each other. The weather-cock placed here at the restoration, is three quarters of a yard high, and one yard, two inches broad, as is also the crossbar.
The Cloister on the South side of the church is the largest quadrangle of the kind in England, each side measuring 58 yards in length, near 14 feet in breadth, and 16 feet, 6 inches in heighth;—the stone roof is ornamented with elegant carvings, representing the visions of the Revelations, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the Legends of St. Christopher, St. Lawrence, &c.