Patrick Comerford
Two of us spent a few days last week in Norwich, the largest city in East Anglia and the county town of Norfolk. Norwich claims to be the most complete medieval city in the England.
We strolled through medieval lanes and cobbled streets, such as Elm Hill, Timber Hill and Tombland, by old buildings like Norwich Castle, Saint Andrew’s Hall and the Guildhall, through the art nouveau Royal Arcade, and by the banks of the River Wensum that winds its way through the city centre.
Charlotte and I were staying in Saint Giles House Hotel, between Saint Giles Church and the city centre.
It was a short visit, but I spent much of one afternoon in Norwich Cathedral, and also visited the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, Saint Julian’s Church, associated with Julian of Norwich, the Quaker Meeting House, which has links with Elizabeth Fry, and some other churches in the heart of the city.
Norwich Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, is the cathedral of the Diocese of Norwich in the Church of England. It has the second largest cloisters in England and spire is the second tallest church spire in England.
The cathedral dates from 1096, when Herbert de Losinga, first Bishop of Norwich, built a new cathedral. But the Diocese of Norwich dates back to 672, when Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus of Canterbury divided the Kingdom of East Anglia into two dioceses, one covering Norfolk and based at Elmham, the other covering Suffolk and based at Dunwich.
East Anglia became a single diocese following the Danish invasions in the ninth century. After the Norman Conquest, the see of Elmham was moved first to Thetford in 1072, and then to Norwich in 1094.
The extensive cathedral close once occupied one tenth of the total area of the mediaeval city, and the site of the new cathedral included a Benedictine priory.
When building work began in 1096, an Anglo-Saxon settlement and two churches were demolished to make room for the buildings and a canal was cut to allow access for boats bringing stone and building materials up the River Wensum. Building work from the east end in 1096, the nave was completed ca 1120, and the entire cathedral was completed by 1145, when the crossing tower was built.
Norwich Cathedral is primarily a Norman building, built of flint and mortar and faced with a cream-coloured Caen limestone. When it was completed, it was 141 metres (461 ft) long and 54 metres (177 ft) wide, making it the largest building in East Anglia.
The ground plan remains entirely as it was in Norman times, except for the easternmost chapel. The east end, near to the sanctuary, is in the form of an apse. The tribune or vaulted area within the apse is unusually tall, and contains piers with large capitals.
The cathedral has an unusually long nave of 14 bays, the transepts are without aisles and the east end terminates in an apse with an ambulatory. From the ambulatory there is access to two chapels of unusual shape, the plan of each being based on two intersecting circles.
The tower is the most ambitious of all the Norman towers to have survived in England. It is decorated with geometrical circles, lozenges and interlaced arcading.
The cathedral was damaged during riots in 1272, and Henry III levied heavy fines on the city. The repairs were completed in 1278, and the cathedral was reconsecrated in the presence of Edward I on Advent Sunday 1278. Some of the windows were replaced with ones in the Gothic style during the 13th century.
The two-storey cloisters were begun in 1297 and they were finished in 1430 after the Black Death had plagued the city. The cloisters are the second largest in England, surpassed only by those at Salisbury Cathedral.
When the Norman spire was blown down in 1362, its fall damaged the east end of the cathedral. When the new spire was struck by lightning in 1463, a fire raged through the nave and was so intense it turned some of the cream-coloured Caen limestone a pink colour.
Under Bishop James Goldwell, a new stone spire was built of brick faced with stone in 1480. The spire is 96 metres (315 ft) high and the second tallest in England – only the spire in Salisbury is taller at 123 metres (404 ft).
Following the destruction caused by the collapse of the spire, the clerestory of the choir was rebuilt in the Perpendicular style.
The cathedral’s flat timber ceilings began to be replaced with stone vaults in the 15th century. The nave was vaulted under Bishop Walter Hart (1446-1472), the choir and the Bauchun Chapel on the east side of the south transept under Bishop James Goldwell (1472-1499) and the transepts after 1520.
The vaulting was carried out in a spectacular manner with hundreds of ornately carved, painted and gilded bosses studding the liernes. The bosses are among the world’s greatest mediaeval sculptural treasures, and survived the iconoclasm of the Tudor and Civil War periods. There are over 1,000 bosses, and the church historian Charles John Philip Cave says the bosses as ‘undoubtedly the most important series in the country.’
The composer and ‘singing man’ Osbert Parsley worked at Norwich Cathedral for 50 years, until he died in 1585.
The Caroline divine and Bishop of Durham John Cosin (1595-1672) was born in Norwich. While he was at Norwich School in the early 17th century, the cathedral was partially in ruins and the former bishop was an absentee figure.
During the Civil War, an angry Puritan mob invaded the cathedral in 1643 and destroyed all symbols that were regarded as too Catholic.
Bishop Joseph Hall, in his book Hard Measure, described a ‘furious sacrilege’ in which glass was shattered, walls were beaten down, monuments torn down, seats pulled down, stone-work demolished, and organ pipes destroyed. Vestments, including copes and surplices, the leaden cross, hymn books and service books, were burned on a fire in the market place.
He describes how the cathedral was filled with armed men, drinking and smoking tobacco ‘as freely as if it had turned ale-house.’ The building was abandoned the following year, and lay in ruins for two decades, and was not restored until after the Restoration in 1660.
Norwich no longer has a rood screen, which once supported the great crucifix. It was located one bay west of the pulpitum, the screen that separated the nave from the choir. The aisles are vaulted in stone, but lack ribs.
The architect Anthony Salvin remodelled the south transept in the 1830s. Charles Nicholson designed a new Lady Chapel or Saint Saviour’s Chapel, built at the east end in 1930-1932 on the site of the 13th-century Lady Chapel that was demolished in the late 16th century.
The mediaeval stained glass windows in the cathedral was largely destroyed during the English Reformation and suffered further damage during the Civil War. The glass in the west window was designed by George Hedgeland, and was installed in 1854.
Saint Luke’s Chapel, formerly dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, has served as the parish church of Saint-Mary-in-the-Marsh. A late 14th century altarpiece behind the altar in the chapel is known as the Despenser Reredos. It is named after Bishop Henry le Despenser, who probably gave the reredos to the cathedral ca 1380-1400.
It was Holy Week when I visited the cathedral last week, and so this reredos was covered. It has five panels depicting the trial, passion, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Christ. It was probably painted by a Norwich artist and is among the first European paintings of this period. The reredos was rediscovered in a damaged state in 1847, having been reversed and used as part of a table.
The copper baptismal font, standing on a moveable base in the nave, was fashioned from bowls previously used for making chocolate in Rowntree’s Norwich factory, which closed in 1994.
The cathedral organ is one the largest in Britain. It was built by Norman and Beard in 1899, but was later damaged in a fire in 1938. A Cymbelstern with six bells and a rotating star was added to the organ in 1969. Harrison & Harrison of Durham rebuilt the organ in 2022-2023.
The astronomical clock at Norwich Cathedral was one of the earliest mechanical clocks in England.
The cathedral’s five bells are hung in the central tower. The cathedral records say one of the central tower bells was named ‘Blessed Mary’ and that the largest bell in the tower was called ‘Lakenham.’
At one time, there may have been 70 choir-stalls at Norwich, allotted to the bishop, the senior clerics, and 60 monks. There are 64 surviving choir-stalls, of which all but four have carved ‘misericords’ dating from the early 15th century on.
A new refectory opened in 2004 on the site of the original refectory on the south side of the cloisters. A new hospitality and education centre was opened in 2010 and is now the main entrance to the cathedral, with space for temporary art exhibitions.
There was mixed reaction, much of it critical, when a 17 metre (56 ft) high helter-skelter was installed inside the cathedral in 2019.
The cathedral close covers an area of 34 ha (85 acres) and is enclosed within the limits of the former Benedictine monastery. In mediaeval times, it occupied a tenth of the total area of the city. It is bordered by the Tombland area, the Anglo-Saxon market place, and the River Wensum.
Many buildings in the close date from the 15th to the 19th centuries, and they include Norwich School. There are statues of the Duke of Wellington and Admiral Nelson and the grave of the nurse Edith Cavell who was executed during World War I.
Two gates lead into the cathedral close from Tombland. I entered through the Ethelbert Gate, which takes its name from a Saxon church that stood nearby. The original gate was destroyed in the riots in 1272, and was replaced in the early 14th century. It has two storeys, the upper originally a chapel dedicated to Saint Ethelbert. I left the close by the Erpingham gate, facing the west door, built by Thomas Erpingham in 1420.
The Very Revd Andrew Braddock has been the Dean of Norwich since 2023. Canon Peter Doll is the Canon Librarian and Vice-Dean, Canon Aidan Platten is the Canon Precentor, and Canon Andy Bryant is the Canon for Mission and Pastoral Care.
• The Cathedral Eucharist is celebrated at 10:30 on Sundays, with a daily Eucharist at 8 am throughout the week. Morning Prayer, Holy Communion and Evensong or Evening Prayer take place every day.
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