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Norwich Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Norwich, Norfolk, England. The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Norwich and the mother church of the diocese of Norwich. It is administered by its dean and chapter, and there are daily Church of England services. It is a Grade I listed building.
Construction of the building was begun in 1096 at the behest of the first bishop of Norwich, Herbert de Losinga. The crossing tower was the last piece of the Norman cathedral to be completed. At that time, measuring 461 ft (141 m) long and 177 ft (54 m) wide, the cathedral was the largest building in East Anglia. The cathedral close occupied a tenth of the total area of the medieval city.
The present structure of Norwich Cathedral is primarily Norman, being made of flint and mortar and faced with a cream-coloured Caen limestone. The cathedral was damaged by rioters in 1272; repairs were completed in 1278. The cloisters, begun in 1297, are the fourth largest cloisters in England. The present spire—the second tallest in England at 315 ft (96 m)—is a stone structure built in 1480 that replaced one made of wood. In about 1830, the south transept was remodelled by the architect Anthony Salvin. A new hospitality and education facility by Hopkins Architects was opened by Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in 2010.
Norwich Cathedral once had the earliest astronomical clock in England. The cathedral's bosses are one of the world's greatest mediaeval sculptural treasures, having survived the iconoclasm of the Tudor and English Civil War periods.
In the year 672, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus, divided the Kingdom of East Anglia into two dioceses: one covering Norfolk with its episcopal see at Elmham; the other covering Suffolk with its see at Dunwich. During much of the 9th century, because of the Danish incursions, there was no bishop at Elmham; in addition the see of Dunwich was extinguished and East Anglia became a single diocese once more. Following the Norman Conquest, sees were moved to more secure urban centres, that of Elmham being transferred to Thetford in 1072, and finally to Norwich in 1094.
Building of the new cathedral was begun in 1096 by Herbert de Losinga, Norwich's first bishop. It was dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. As with the Norman cathedrals at Bath, Winchester, Worcester, Canterbury, Rochester, Durham, and Ely, it incorporated a priory of Benedictine monks.
The structure of the cathedral is primarily in the Norman style, having been constructed at the behest of the first bishop of Norwich, Herbert de Losinga, who had bought the bishopric for £1,900 before its transfer from Thetford. It still retains the greater part of its original stone structure. An Anglo-Saxon settlement and two churches were demolished to make room for the buildings and a canal cut to allow access for the boats bringing the stone and building materials which were taken up the River Wensum and unloaded.
The cathedral was damaged after riots in 1272, which resulted in the city paying heavy fines levied by Henry III, king of England The cathedral was re-consecrated in the presence of Edward I of England on Advent Sunday, in 1278.
The first spire of wood covered in lead was completed in 1297 but was blown down during a storm in 1362, its fall damaging the east end of the building. In 1463 the 2nd spire was struck by lightning, in flames it collapsed through the nave roof causing a fire so intense it turned some of the cream-coloured Caen limestone a pink colour. In 1480 the bishop, James Goldwell, ordered the building of a new spire encased in stone and finished in 1485 which is still in place today.
The composer and 'singing man' Osbert Parsley worked at Norwich Cathedral for 50 years, until his death in 1585. The cathedral was partially in ruins when John Cosin was at Norwich School in the early 17th century and the former bishop was an absentee figure. In 1643 during the Civil War, an angry Puritan mob invaded the cathedral and destroyed all Roman Catholic symbols. The building, abandoned the following year, lay in ruins for two decades. Norwich bishop Joseph Hall provides a graphic description from his book Hard Measure:
It is tragical to relate the furious sacrilege committed under the authority of Linsey, Tofts the sheriff, and Greenwood: what clattering of glasses, what beating down of walls, what tearing down of monuments, what pulling down of seats, and wresting out of irons and brass from the windows and graves; what defacing of arms, what demolishing of curious stone-work, that had not any representation in the world but of the cost of the founder and skill of the mason; what piping on the destroyed organ-pipes; vestments, both copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross which had been newly sawed down from over the greenyard pulpit, and the singing-books and service-books, were carried to the fire in the public market-place; a lewd wretch walking before the train in his cope trailing in the dirt, with a service-book in his hand, imitating in an impious scorn the tune, and usurping the words of the litany. The ordnance being discharged on the guild-day, the cathedral was filled with musketeers, drinking and tobacconing as freely as if it had turned ale-house.
The mob also fired their muskets. At least one musket ball remains lodged in the stonework. Only at the Restoration in 1660 would the cathedral be restored.
In the 1830s the south transept was remodelled by the English architect Anthony Salvin. In 1930–1932 a new Lady Chapel, designed by Charles Nicholson, was built at the east end, on the site of its 13th-century predecessor, which had been demolished during the late 16th century.
The cathedral is included as one of the "Norwich 12", a list of the city's most iconic buildings produced as part of an initiative launched in 2008 by the Norwich Heritage Economic and Regeneration Trust.
In 2004 the new refectory (winner, National Wood Awards 2004), by Hopkins Architects and Buro Happold, opened on the site of the original refectory on the south side of the cloisters. Work on the new hostry, also by Hopkins Architects, started in April 2007 after the 'Cathedral Inspiration for the Future Campaign' had reached its target of £10 million. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on 4 May 2010. The new hostry has become the main entrance to the cathedral. Space has been provided within the hostry for temporary art exhibitions.
In July 2019, a 17 m (56 ft) high helter-skelter was constructed inside the cathedral, partly for the purpose of attracting more visitors and also giving people a better vantage point for viewing the roof bosses. Reaction to the installation of the slide was mixed, Gavin Ashenden, former chaplain to the Queen, described it as "poisoning the medicine" a church offered. In August 2019, Jonathan Meyrick, the Bishop of Lynn, gave a sermon and sang Words by the Bee Gees from halfway down.
Norwich Cathedral has been the seat of the Bishop of Norwich since 1094. The governing chapter is made up of the dean, the Canon Precentor, the Canon Librarian & Vice-Dean, the Canon for Mission & Pastoral Care, and six lay members. The current bishop is Graham Usher, who was installed in the cathedral in 2019. The current Dean of Norwich is Andrew Braddock, who was installed at the cathedral on 28 January 2023.
Other staff include the organist and master of music and his assistant, the Liturgy and Music Administrator, the librarian and curator, the Retail Manager, the Sacrist, the Broderers' Guild Workshop Supervisor, and the Secretary to the Friends of Norwich Cathedral.
Building of the cathedral started from the east end in 1096, with the nave being completed by around 1120. The entire cathedral was completed by 1145, when the crossing tower was built. The cathedral is constructed using limestone sourced from Lincolnshire, Barnack and Caen, flint, and mortar. The present spire, a stone structure that replaced one made of wood and covered with lead, was added in 1480.
Following the riots of 1272, repairs to the building were completed in 1278. Some of the windows were replaced with ones in the Gothic style during the 13th century.
The cloisters was begun in 1297 and finally finished in 1430 after the Black Death had plagued the city. The system of building remained the same over this period, though the details, in particular the tracery of the openings facing the cloister garth, did change. Following the destruction caused by the collapse of the spire, the clerestory of the choir was rebuilt in the Perpendicular style.
In the 15th century, the cathedral's flat timber ceilings began to be replaced with stone vaults; the nave was vaulted under Walter Hart (bishop, 1446–1472), the choir and the Bauchun Chapel (on the east side of the south transept) under James Goldwell (bishop, 1472–1499) and the transepts after 1520. The system of vaulting is of a tierceron vault with Lierne ribs forming patterns of lozenges and stars along the ridge. The vaulting was carried out in a spectacular manner with hundreds of ornately carved, painted and gilded bosses studding the liernes.
Measuring 461 ft (141 m) and 177 ft (54 m) wide at completion, Norwich Cathedral was the largest building in East Anglia. The ground plan remains entirely as it was in Norman times, except for that of the easternmost chapel. 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. This allows more correct orientation of the altars than in the more normal kind of radial chapel.
The tower, the most ambitious of all the Norman towers to have survived in England, is decorated with geometrical circles, lozenges and interlaced arcading.
The spire is of brick faced with stone, supported on brick squinches built into the Norman tower. At 315 ft (96 m) high, the spire is the second tallest in England; only that of Salisbury is taller at 404 ft (123 m).
Norwich Cathedral has the second largest cloisters in England, only exceeded by those at Salisbury Cathedral. It has two-storeys, the only example of its kind in England and nearly 400 carved stone ceiling bosses.
The eastern end of the cathedral, near to the sanctuary, is in the form of an apse The tribune (the vaulted area within the apse) is unusually tall, and contains piers with large capitals.
Norwich no longer has its rood screen, which would have been used to support 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 Anglican cathedrals at Norwich, Salisbury, and Ely are the only ones that have no ring of bells. The astronomical clock at Norwich Cathedral was one of the earliest mechanical timekeepers made in England.
The medieval stained glass windows in the cathedral, which was largely destroyed during the English Reformation, sustained further damage during the English Civil War. The glass in the west window was designed by George Hedgeland, and was installed in 1854.
In 1999, the cathedral chapter commissioned John Hayward to make three stained glass panels for the lower register of windows in the north transept, asking him to take account of an existing window by Keith New that had been recently installed in the upper register. New’s panel, depicting the Conversion of St Paul, had originally been made in 1958 for Sir Christopher Wren’s church of St Stephen Walbrook in the City of London before being removed during a 1991 reordering. As part of this commission, Hayward acquired two further panels by New that had been removed from the same church. He placed these either side of the first to form a group of three, thereby creating a dialogue with his own windows positioned immediately below, which depict the Virgin and Child.
The bosses of Norwich Cathedral are one of the world's greatest mediaeval sculptural treasures, and a near miraculous survival of the iconoclasm from the Tudor and English Civil War periods. They have been described by the church historian Charles John Philip Cave as "undoubtedly the most important series in the country". There are over 1,000 bosses; the earliest subjects are natural, mostly flowers and foliage. Then come figural representations such as foliate men, acrobats, mythical animals, hunting scenes and single bosses which show a story such as events from the lives of the saints. Then there are narratives which tell a story in a sequence of bosses. The nave vault shows the history of the world from the creation. Later bosses revert to foliage or formal subjects such as coats of arms.
The bosses can be seen most clearly in the cloisters, where they are lower than those elsewhere. The east range has much foliage, and a sequence of the Passion of Jesus. The north range has the Resurrection and scenes of Mary, mother of Jesus and the saints. The south and west walk have the Apocalypse, as well as the Annunciation and Herod's Feast. Catalogues of the cloister bosses have been published by M.R. James (1911), with drawings of the bosses of the north walk.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Norwich Cathedral”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.