Norwich Cathedral

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.

History

Early years 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.

Seat of the bishop 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.

Building programme 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.

Later Medieval period 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.

16th and 17th centuries 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.

19th and 20th centuries

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.

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