St Chad'S Cathedral School And Chapel

St Chad's Cathedral School and Chapel

A former episcopal palace, now a school with attached chapel, located in Lichfield. The main building dates from 1687-8 and was designed by Edward Pierce, one of Sir Christopher Wren's masons. The wings and chapel are 19th-century additions from 1869.

The building is constructed in ashlar with a hipped tile roof and ashlar stacks. It is arranged in a U-plan with later wings to the front, forming an H-plan layout, with the chapel positioned at the rear angle. The style is Queen Anne. The main frontage is symmetrical with 2 storeys, basement, and attic. It has a 7-window range with a 3-window centre that breaks forward beneath a pediment bearing arms and the date 1687.

The base has a plain plinth with a platt band above the ground floor and a top modillioned timber cornice. Rusticated quoins mark the angles. The entrance is accessed by 10 bowed steps with iron handrails and a 19th-century lamp. The entrance doorcase has an architrave, frieze, and consoled segmental pediment, with a pair of 5-fielded-panel doors, two glazed. Basement windows are 2-light. Other windows have moulded sills and architraves to pegged cross-casements with iron opening lights and leaded glazing. The attic features 4 hipped dormers with 2-light leaded casements.

The 19th-century wings have moulded plinths, quoins, cornices, and hipped roofs. The left 2-storey wing has a front cross-casement with flanking transomed lights, three panels above, and a round-headed dormer with a bull's eye, a 19th-century lamp at the angle, and 5 transomed lights to the right return with 2 lateral stacks and an entrance to the left. The right single-storey wing has similar details but includes a Diocletian window above the window to the front. Its left return has 3 windows (2 with cross-casements, one blind) and 2 dormers. The right return has a lateral stack, 2 blind windows, an entrance, and 2 dormers. The left return features a glazed lean-to at ground-floor level. The right return has a 19th-century full-height addition at the angle with the front wing, with a 3-window range to the right having 9/1-pane sashes to ground floor, two 12/8-pane sashes and one cross-casement to first floor.

The rear elevation has 2-window wings, an entrance with architrave and French window, flanking 12-pane sashes, 9/1-pane sashes to the ground floor of the right wing, and 6/1-pane sashes to the left inner return. Other windows have cross-casements, mostly leaded; those to the ground floor of the left wing are blocked behind glazing. There are 4 dormers.

The 4-bay chapel at the right angle has coped gables and a buttress to the right of the left end bay marking the sanctuary. The lancet windows have flanking Tudor flower motifs and continuous hoods. A lancet is positioned at the east return. The west end features a half-round turret with a bell cote and flanking lancets. The south elevation has a lean-to passage with tiny lancets and a pointed entrance with a gablet.

Interior

The hall contains a fireplace with an ex-situ panelled overmantel bearing the arms of Bishop Hackett and the date 1669. An open well stair to the right has turned balusters, panelled newels, and a moulded handrail; the landing is supported by 3 timber arches. A stair to the left has slender turned balusters and ball finials to the newels. Two-panel doors, including one to a panelled room at the left end with an eared architrave, pulvinated frieze, and cornice, lead to various spaces. The room features bolection-moulded panelling with a dado rail and corner fireplace with deep entablature. Other rooms contain mostly 19th-century detail.

The chapel has an arch-braced roof with wall shafts marking the sanctuary. The sanctuary ceiling and window recesses form sedilia. The panelled wainscotting has shafts supporting a brattished cornice. The east end retains some linenfold and quatrefoil decoration, with 17th-century relief panels to the reredos. Wall painting to the sanctuary is dated 1916. The east window has shafts and a moulded trefoil head. A west gallery surmounts an arched timber screen with attached stalls featuring misericords. The stained glass windows contain 19th-century panels, some retaining decorative settings.

Historical Context

The palace was originally built as an episcopal residence. From the 1860s it served as the bishop's home, though previously it was the residence of Gilbert Walmsley, a friend of the actor David Garrick and the writer Dr Samuel Johnson, and of Anna Seward, the poet known as the Swan of Lichfield. The building became a school in 1954. The building is impressive, retaining many original features with sensitive 19th-century additions.