Travel – UK – Lichfield Cathedral

This is an excerpt from my book Travels through History : Leicester, Lichfield, Lincoln, and Loughborough currently available at a discount.

When St Chad became Bishop of Mercia in 669, he moved his See from Repton –  in modern day Derbyshire – to Lichfield – in modern day Staffordshire. The best guess as to why he did this, is that Lichfield was already a holy site, because of the martyrdom of early Christians here during the Roman period. 

In 700AD Bishop Hedda built a new cathedral to house the bones of St Chad, whose tomb had become a shrine for many pilgrims after he died in 672. Offa, King of Mercia – he of the 140-mile long dyke between Mercia and Wales – resented his own bishops paying allegiance to the Archbishop of Canterbury, a place not in his own kingdom of Mercia. Offa created his own Archbishopric in Lichfield, which presided over all the bishops from the Humber to the Thames. This bishopric began in 786, with the consent of the Pope. The Archbishopric of Lichfield lasted until just after Offa’s death in 796.

Starting in 1085, a Norman cathedral made from stone gradually replaced the original wooden Saxon church, though this was soon replaced by the present Gothic cathedral begun in 1195. In the 1330s, the building of the Lady Chapel completed the Gothic building seen today. The choir dates from 1200, the transepts from 1220 to 1240 and the nave was started in 1260. The octagonal Chapter House, completed in 1249, houses an exhibition of the cathedral’s greatest treasure, the Lichfield Gospels, an 8th-century illuminated manuscript, on display from Easter until Christmas.

Also known as the Book of Chad, this manuscript comprises the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and the early part of Luke, written mainly in Latin with some text in early Welsh and date from around 730. There were originally two volumes, but one went ‘missing’ around the time of the English Civil War.

There were three great sieges of Lichfield during the period 1643–1646. A ditch and defensive walls surrounded the cathedral close because the cathedral authorities sided with Charles I, but the townsfolk had sympathy for the Parliamentarian cause. The townsfolk laid siege in March 1643, and the Royalist garrison surrendered two days later. The following month, Prince Rupert led a Royalist expeditionary force from Oxford to recapture Lichfield. The siege started on 8th April and during the second assault, Rupert’s engineers detonated an explosive mine to breach the defences. Unable to defend the cathedral, Colonel Russell, the parliamentary commander, surrendered on 21st April.

However, the cathedral suffered extensive damage: they demolished the central spire; the roofs were mostly destroyed, and the stained glass smashed. Bishop Hacket began the restoration of the cathedral in the 1660s, aided by substantial funds donated by Charles II, but the damage caused by the Civil War wasn’t fully repaired for nearly 200 years. 

Despite this appalling damage, the windows of the Lady Chapel contain some of the finest mediaeval Flemish painted glass in existence, dating from the 1530s. The glass came from the Abbey of Herkenrode in Belgium, in 1801, an abbey dissolved during the Napoleonic Wars.

Another remarkable sight at the cathedral is the western front, extensively renovated in the Victorian era by George Gilbert Scott. There are a remarkable number of ornate carved figures of kings, queens and saints. The builders worked with original materials where possible and created fine imitations when the originals weren’t available. This front is a photographer’s delight and is one of the most beautiful in the whole of England.