Patrick Comerford
I have spent much of today in Lichfield, visiting the chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, going for walks along Cross in Hand Lane, Beacon Street, and around Minister Pool and Stowe Pool, attending Choral Evensong in Lichfield Cathedral this evening and, earlier in the day, attending the mid-day Eucharist with the Thursday Prayers for Peace at the Saint Chad Shrine in the Lady Chapel, celebrated by Bishop Paul Thomas. He is Bishop of Oswestry, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Lichfield, and a provincial episcopal visitor in the Province of Canterbury since he was consecrated two years ago (2 February 2023).
For many reasons, both Lichfield Cathedral and the chapel in Saint John’s Hospital have been my spiritual homes since my late teens.
For residents of Lichfield and visitors alike, the three spires of Lichfield Cathedral symbolise of the city. It is the only mediaeval cathedral in England with three spires: Truro Cathedral in Cornwall also has three spires, but it was built in 1880-1910; in Scotland, Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh, also has three spires, and was built in 1874-1879.
The three spires of Edinburgh Cathedral are known as Main, Barbara and Mary. But, while the three spires of Lichfield Cathedral are often known as the ‘Ladies of the Vale’, I do not know of them ever having individual names.
David Adkins of Buton upon Trent, who labels himself an anthropologist and historian, recently claimed to have solved a mystery and that he knows why Lichfield Cathedral is the only mediaeval cathedral in England with three spires.
‘They have always been something of a mystery as no-one has ever discovered why the cathedral has these three enormous spires’, he asserts. ‘A mystery that is until you remember that Lichfield was the seat of the third archbishop of England. The Archbishopric of Lichfield was short-lived and disappeared over 1200 years ago, it only lasted from 787 to 803 AD and meant that Staffordshire was the only other county in England to have ever had an Archbishopric based within it’.
He claims: ‘The three spires can only represent one thing – the three Archbishops of England – and it is almost certain that the medieval stonemasons created the three spires in memory of Lichfield’s past. The two smaller spires symbolised the two original archbishops – York and Canterbury – and the larger central spire represented the Archbishop of Lichfield itself.’
However, Adkins provides no evidence or sources to support his suppositions. And his assertion lacks credibility for a number of other.
King Offa of Mercia created the position of Archbishop of Lichfield in 787. The dioceses of Winchester, Sherborne, Selsey, Rochester and London remained within the Province of Canterbury, while the dioceses of Worcester, Hereford, Leicester, Lindsey, Dommoc and Elmham became suffragan sees of Lichfield. Pope Adrian I concurred, and it was approved at the Council of Chelsea, sometimes known as the ‘contentious synod’.
Hygeberht, or Higbert, who had been the Bishop of Lichfield since 787, became the first and only Archbishop of Lichfield. In response, King Offa agreed to send an annual shipment of 365 gold coins to the Pope – seen as the origin of Peter’s Pence, an annual levy paid to Rome by the English Church – and to supply the lights in Saint Peter’s in Rome.
However, the position of Archbishop of Lichfield lasted for only 16 years, until Hygeberht resigned in 803. One of his last acts as archbishop, it is said, was to consecrate his successor Ealdwulf as Bishop of Lichfield, and the title of archbishop was laid aside. Hygeberht is listed as an abbot at the Council of Cloveshoo in the year 803 that oversaw the demotion of Lichfield in 803, and he died some time later. His successor, Bishop Aldulf, renounced the metropolitan powers in favour of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and died ca 814-816.
Far from being a protected secret part of the history of Lichfield Cathedral, the story is told publicly in windows by Charles Eamer Kempe in the chapter house.
Adkins in his innovative but unsourced claims says the masons gave the central spire of Lichfield Cathedral ‘extra height to set it above both York and Canterbury, and as a result the whole building is a commemoration of Lichfield’s prestigious past. It clearly depicts Lichfield’s position as the third major player in Anglo-Saxon politics and religion.’
There has been a cathedral in Lichfield from about the year 700, and there may have been a church on the site as early as 659. After the invasion of 1066, the Normans built a new cathedral
Roger de Clinton, Bishop of Lichfield in 1129-1148, built a new cathedral in Lichfield in honour of Saint Mary and Saint Chad, and also laid out the main streets of Lichfield in a grid pattern, still in evidence almost 800 years later. Work on building the cathedral continued in the 13th and 14th centuries. This work probably began with the choir at the east end and progressed west through the transepts, chapter house, nave, and south-west tower. The choir dates from 1200, the transepts from 1220-1240 and the nave was started ca 1260. The octagonal chapter house was completed in 1249. The cathedral was completed when the Lady Chapel was built in the 1330s.
The central tower, the south-east tower and the three spires followed. The central spire of Lichfield Cathedral is 77 metres (253 ft) high and was completed in 1315, and its story is told in the current exhibition in the Chapter House, ‘Story of a Spire’, which was due to close last August but has been extended until this month. The west spires are about 58 metres (190 ft), with the south spire a little taller than the north spire. These towers were added over five years after the death of the one and only Archbishop of Lichfield, and it stretched creduity to imagine that at that stage anyone would go to such lengths and to such expense to structurally comment in such a brief episode in church history that is remembered as a mere political aberration.
The cathedral was besieged three times in the Civil War in the mid-17th century and was severely damage. The central spire was demolished, the roofs ruined and all the stained glass smashed. Bishop John Hacket began restoring Lichfield Cathedral in the 1660s, and had repaired the cathedral within nine years. The restored cathedral was rededicated on Christmas Day 1669.
The interior of the cathedral was rearranged at the end of the 18th century and further restored in the 19th century by Sir George Gilbert Scott, giving us the cathedral we see today.
There is no source to indicate that Hackett saw the restoration of the cathedral spires as an exercise in remembering one single episode in the history of Lichfield almost 900 years earlier, when there was a single Archbishop of Lichfield.
Adkins does not indicate anywhere on his social media profiles what his qualifications are, apart from stating he studied at the University of Leeds. There are no indications that he has ever held an academic post in either discipline, that he has been published in peer-reviewed journals or that he is author of academically acclaimed books.
On the other hand, he has made some extravagant claims, including that he has unravelled the mystery of the Staffordshire knot, and that he alone knows that the Shroud of Turin is a tablecloth that was made in Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire.
He claims that lost treasure that could include the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail may be lying underneath Sinai Park, a manor house near Burton. He says he is convinced the priceless treasures were taken from Jerusalem in 1307, were stored beneath Sina Park, and that this was a secret location of the Knights Templar.
His sensationalist claims about what he describes as ‘one of the greatest religious treasures in the world’ have led to equally sensational newspaper headlines like: ‘Raiders of the Lost Park’.
In other headline-grabbing claims, he has said the so-called Shapira Scroll – said to contain ‘the 11th Commandment’, ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart: I am God, your god’ – is buried in Stapenhill Cemetery in Burton. The Shapira Scroll was denounced widely by scholars in the 19th century as a forgery.
This evening, I am on my way from the Cathedral to the Old Grammar School on Saint John’s Street, across the street from Saint John’s Hospital. The building dates back to 1577, and is to become home to the local history group Lichfield Discovered.
Over the coming years, Lichfield Discovered plans to transform some of the spaces at the Old Grammar School and to work with local people, groups and the city’s museums and heritage sites to celebrate the history Lichfield.
