Lichfield Cathedral

“ Lichfield is the clasp-jewel of the gold-and-green embroidered zone of the Black Country. Its cathedral is an edifice of which a whole nation might be proud, if possessing no other monument of beautiful architecture. The century-plant, that puts forth its white blossom only at the end of a hundred years, has its special reputation and place in the floral kingdom. This Staffordshire cathedral is a millenium plant, which has unfolded the exquisite petals and leaves of its great and beautiful blossom of architecture at the end of ten centuries of steady growing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Choir gatherings have become a national institution—in one word, cathedral bodies have met the people half way, and the people accept their advances. We do not yet see more than the first glimmerings of what may come from this all-important event. Even in regard to external worship, the spectacle of Lichfield cathedral, so sumptuously and so correctly fitted, is a standing contradiction to the assertions of those who would degrade our churches to the type of the conventicle, on the pretext that dignified ritual is contrary to English feelings. ”

“ The spire of Christ Church is some little distance away from the other two. It is octagonal in shape, and rises from an embattled tower to a height of 230 feet. It was restored in 1888.
Lichfield Cathedral contains three spires within its precincts. The grouping is, therefore, more uniform than that of Coventry, although the general effect is not thereby accentuated. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No other building is the centre and attraction of so many German associations. For nearly a thousand years it has been rising under the thin, trickling streams of German contributions. But the builders, with these small means, have hardly been able to outstrip the slow feet of time and to fill its deforming footsteps. While working at one end of the cathedral the other is falling to ruin. Time seems to be chasing them from one end to the other, defacing their work as they creep on with the slow centuries. But look at Lichfield Cathedral. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ But structures of wider reputation than the cathedral have been founded and erected in Lichfield. It has given physical or intellectual birth to men of a stature of mind that has overlooked the tallest of the three cathedral spires, and cast a luminous shadow over two hemispheres. Can any other town so small in England boast, like this flat-footed little city, of giving birth, first shaping, or residence to four such men as Johnson, Addison, Garrick, and Ashmole? ”

“ The west front of Lichfield is noted for the richness of its decorations, covered as it is with niches holding images and, it might almost be said, with every available inch covered with decorative work. The whole has a most superb effect, and at a distance, where the poverty of the modern workmanship is not easily discerned, its appearance cannot be very different now to that which it presented at the end of the fourteenth century. ”

“ Between the aisle and the nave there is a brass in the floor in memory of the late Earl of Lichfield, placed there in 1854. There are several other modern brasses and tablets.
In this aisle are two of the three semi-effigies to be seen in the cathedral. These show only the heads and the feet. Britton says: "They are said to represent two old canons of the church; and are evidently of ancient date, as they appear to have been placed in the present situation at the time of building or finishing the nave." ”

“ Desecration and spoliation raged in the once beautiful church. Carved stalls, organ, stained glass windows—all shared the same fate. Images were torn from their niches and broken; tombs were rifled, and the ashes of holy men scattered about with barbarous indecency. Bishop Scrope's tomb yielded a [233] silver chalice and crozier of much value, and a pandemonium of ruthless rage filled the church. Prince Rupert came to Lichfield, and laid siege to the Cathedral, and after ten days turned out the Roundheads. ”

“ 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 Transepts are earlier than the nave in style, having been built in the beginning of the thirteenth century: the south transept first, and then the north. It must have been for these transepts that Henry III., in 1235 and 1238, granted licences to the dean and chapter of Lichfield to dig stone from the royal forest of Hopwas for the new fabric of the [68] church of Lichfield. ”

“ The little Church of St. Chad was near the well that bears his name. Another Saxon church was built by Bishop Hedda (691-721) near the present Cathedral, but this has passed away. The diocese was sub-divided at the close of the seventh century, and Hereford, Worcester, [231] Lincoln and Leicester were all separated from the Lichfield See. In the time of Offa, King of Mercia, Lichfield became an archbishopric, when Higbert was bishop, but this distinction did not last long. At the Conquest William made his chaplain, Peter, Bishop of Lichfield, who removed his seat to Chester. ”

“ Churches were springing up all over the diocese, with their own clergy, and so, although the church at Lichfield remained the headquarters of the diocese, yet the clergy attached to it were no longer to be responsible for the ministrations of the whole diocese, but were to confine themselves to the estates of the bishop and the cathedral, where they were to dwell under canons or rules. ”

“ One of the earliest is that of Bishop Hugh of Wells, of Lincoln in A.D. 1235; Bishop Stavenby of Lichfield, who died 1238, set the example there; and so in other cathedrals. There [Pg 452] is a pleasing touch of sentiment in Bishop Weseham’s foundation of a chantry in Lichfield Cathedral for himself and his friend, Bishop Grostete of Lincoln, of which cathedral he had himself been dean before his promotion to the episcopate. [515]
Not many parish priests founded chantries, because they were seldom rich enough to undertake anything so costly ”

“ There was a screen between the Lady Chapel and the rest of the cathedral in old days. Stukeley mentions it in his notes. He says: "The partition there betwixt the two choirs is a fine piece of architecture, but demolished also in time of war; and, though the figures are destroyed, and at the foot of the same every cherub defaced, yet it may be perceived to be a fine piece of work; for though it be uniform from top to bottom, yet every capital and pedestall are different works within and without." ”

“ Mary's is a rectory, with the perpetual curacy of St. Chad's, in the archdeaconry of Stafford and diocese of Lichfield and Coventry; the former not in charge, (patron, the Lord Chancellor) , the latter C.V. £7 10s., P.R. £49; patron, one of the prebendaries of Lichfield Cathedral. Here are places of worship for various denominations of dissenters, and a Catholic chapel. The principal trade of the place is the tanning of leather, the making of boots and shoes (for which it has long been remarkable) , malt, cabinet work, and cutlery. The grammar school of this town is of very ancient origin ”

“ Some of the ancient bishops of Lichfield were fighting men, and at times their cathedral was made into a castle surrounded by walls and a moat, and occasionally besieged. The Puritans grievously battered it, and knocked down the central spire. The [Pg 102] cathedral was afterwards rebuilt by Christopher Wren, and the work of restoration is at present going on. As all the old stained glass was knocked out of the windows during the Civil Wars, several of them have been refilled with fine glass from the abbey at Liège. ”

“ The Nave.—The view of the interior of the cathedral from the inside of the west door is, as we have said, extremely beautiful. This beauty is much enhanced by the general appearance of unity in the whole design. There seems to be no mixture of styles, and though a closer examination of the details of the interior shows that there is a very marked difference between the style in which the nave is built and that which was in vogue when the Lady Chapel and presbytery were erected ”

“ There are other notes connecting it with Lichfield. All these have been printed many times in the pages of learned publications. It owes its escape at the time of the Civil War to the vigilance of William Higgins, Archdeacon of Derby, who was precentor of the cathedral. He abstracted it and kept it until the troubles were over. It now lies in a glass case in the library, side by side with the beautiful "Canterbury Tales." So marvellous are some of the decorations, that it is no wonder that, in an age more faithful than ours, popular belief declared some of them to be "the work of angels." ”

“ Concerning any old Cathedral the mass of information is very great, and the authorities to be consulted many; and perhaps the almost total absence—as in this case—of a documentary history of the building of the fabric, makes for a larger bulk of pamphlets and of communications to the antiquarian journals. Whether or no theory be wiser than fact, it is certainly more voluminous. Besides the books and papers mentioned in their place, I have especially to express my indebtedness to the work on Lichfield by the Rev. ”

“ Recently, on the west side, some of the arcading has been opened out to afford access to the new vestry, which has been constructed by roofing in the space between the vestibule and the north transept. On the east side near the cathedral is the entrance to the library, which is the upper storey of the chapter-house building, and is approached by a spiral staircase. At the farther end, on the same side, is the very fine entrance to the chapter-house. This, like the central west doorway and that in the north transept, is double and recessed. ”

“ The brass Lectern is also modern, and is in the usual form of an eagle. It was presented by the members of the Lichfield Theological College, and was executed by Mr Hardman of Birmingham. The Litany Desk is by Messrs Rattee & Kett of Cambridge, the well-known carvers; and the Bishop's Chair, which stands under the great tower, was presented by the clergy of Derbyshire when that county was transferred from this diocese to the new diocese of Southwell. The chair is not of striking beauty. ”

“ She induced her husband to found and endow the abbey with its twenty-four monks; she herself contributed her gold and silver, and the monastery became so wealthy that "the walls seemed almost too strait to hold it all."
Leofwin, bishop of Lichfield (1054-1066) , was made the first abbot of Coventry; he died in the year of the Conquest, and was the last Saxon bishop: henceforth a new order of men was to rule the Church in England. ”