Cathedral Church Of The Holy And Indivisible Trinity

This cathedral stands on or near the site of a monastery founded by Osric around 681. It served as the conventual church of the Benedictine Abbey of St Peter until the dissolution of the monastery, after which it was refounded in 1541 as a secular cathedral.

Building History

The cathedral incorporates major portions of the Romanesque church built between 1089 and 1100 for Abbot Serlo, with the nave completed between 1104 and 1122. The timber roof of the nave was replaced by a vault completed in 1242. The south aisle of the nave was rebuilt in the Decorated style between 1319 and 1329. The south transept was remodelled with innovative use of Perpendicular details between 1331 and 1336. The presbytery was remodelled in developed Perpendicular style between 1337 and 1367, followed by the north transept between 1368 and 1373. The two west bays of the nave and west front were rebuilt and the south porch added around 1420. The central tower was rebuilt around 1450, and the Lady Chapel was rebuilt in the late 15th century.

Major repairs were undertaken for Bishop Benson between 1734 and 1752. Restorations followed by FW Waller from 1847 to 1863, Sir Gilbert Scott from 1866 to 1873, and FW Waller again from 1873 to 1890. JL Pearson served as consultant for the restoration of the Lady Chapel in 1896–97. 20th-century repairs have also been carried out.

Materials and Construction

The cathedral is built of limestone ashlar and squared coursed rubble, with lead and stone slate roofs.

Plan

The building has a cruciform plan with a tall central tower above the crossing. The nave is aisled and consists of nine bays. The principal entrance is through a large, two-storey porch projecting from the second bay of the south aisle of the nave. The choir, entered through a pulpitum, occupies the east bay of the nave and the crossing.

The north and south transepts each comprise two bays, with a two-storey, polygonal chapel projecting from the east side of each of the outer bays. An ambulatory surrounds the presbytery, which consists of five bays. The east bay is canted outwards to accommodate the greater width of the 14th-century great east window, which replaced the 12th-century apse. Evidence of an early Romanesque pier is left visible in the second pier from the north-east corner at tribune level.

The ambulatory is apsidal with north-east and south-east, two-storey, radiating chapels with polygonal apses. The upper chapels are entered from the tribune galleries above the aisles.

To the east lies the Lady Chapel, entered below a gallery inserted to replace the section of the 12th-century tribune gallery removed in the 14th century. The Lady Chapel consists of five bays with symmetrical north and south chapels, which have singing galleries above and project from the fourth bay to the east.

Below the presbytery is an apsidal crypt divided into three aisles and enclosed by an outer ambulatory aisle. The ambulatory has three outer apsidal chapels at the east end and passages to crypt chapels below the transept chapels.

Exterior

West Front

The gable-end of the nave is flanked by lower aisles. At the corners of the nave are buttressed and panelled turrets with octagonal top stages supported by miniature flying buttresses and capped by spirelets. The west doorway has moulded jambs and arch set in a rectangular frame. The wall is crowned by an open-arcaded crenellated parapet.

Set back behind the parapet, within deep reveals, is the great west window of nine lights divided by two buttressed king mullions (3+3+3) with Perpendicular tracery. Above the window arch are panelled spandrels and an ogee gablet with finial above the crown of the arch, rising into the centre of a crowning, open-arcaded parapet that links the corner turrets and is surmounted by a pierced cross. Perpendicular windows are set in the end walls of the aisles and in the west bay of the south aisle.

South Porch

The south porch, heavily restored, projects from the second bay of the south aisle. It is of two storeys with buttressed, square angle turrets. The pierced top stages are crowned by spirelets. On each side of the moulded entrance archway is a canopied niche, and above is a row of six richly canopied niches filled in the 19th century with statues of saints by JL Redfern. Crenellated, pierced parapets run between the turrets, with an open ogee arch rising through and above the front parapet and surmounted by a cross.

South Aisle

To the east of the porch, the south aisle to the nave comprises seven bays, each with a three-light window with identical Decorated tracery, except for Perpendicular tracery in the seventh window. All the mouldings are enriched with ball flower. The aisle buttresses are in three stages, with the two lower stages capped by enriched gablets. A canopied niche is set in the face of each upper stage, and the buttresses are crowned by tall, crocketted, crowning pinnacles with gablets. The niches on three of the buttresses contain badly weathered 14th-century statues.

Nave Clerestory

In each bay is a three-light window with reticulated tracery in four-centred arches.

South Transept

At each outer corner is a large, projecting 12th-century turret. These are linked at lower level across the south, gable-end wall by a projecting wall face surmounted by a tier of blank arcading crowned by a parapet of open arcading. In the south gable wall, recessed behind the parapet, is a large eight-light window divided by a king mullion (4+4) with early Perpendicular tracery. The outer order of the window arch is of reused 12th-century chevron moulding.

In each spandrel is a 12th-century blank arch cut by the insertion of the window. Above is a crenellated, pierced parapet masking the lower part of the recessed 12th-century transept gable. The gable has a stepped blank arcade of five bays with chevron moulding and, on the apex, a crocketted finial.

Each corner turret is of plain ashlar to the level of the transept parapet, then has a lower stage of blank interlaced arcading with double shafts and an upper stage of blank arcading with single shafts. Each turret is crowned by a small octagonal spire with finial. Against the east and west walls are massive raking buttresses added in the 15th century to support the central tower. In each wall is a four-light Perpendicular window with four-centred arch.

On the east side are 12th-century polygonal projections containing chapels at crypt, aisle, and tribune levels. At each level, most of the original 12th-century windows have been altered and infilled with Perpendicular tracery. The ambulatory aisle to the presbytery and the south-east polygonal projection containing chapels also have 12th-century windows with inserted Perpendicular tracery.

Presbytery Clerestory

The clerestory to the presbytery has a tall four-light window in each bay with transom and foiled panel tracery.

Great East Window

The great east window is designed as a shallow bay with slightly canted sides. It comprises fourteen lights overall, divided 4+6+4 by buttressed mullions at the angles of the bay, with transoms and Perpendicular tracery. The shallow end gable is flanked by square corner turrets with upper stages of open tracery panels and crowned by spirelets. On the gable between the turrets is an open arcaded parapet with a cross at the apex. On each side is a crenellated, open panel parapet.

Lady Chapel

On both sides in each bay is a five-light window with transoms and Perpendicular tracery. In the fourth bay, the projecting side chapels with loft storeys above rise to just below the springing level of the main window arches. At the east end are diagonal corner buttresses and a window of nine lights with transoms and Perpendicular tracery. Crowning pinnacles stand at the corners, and on the sides and the gable-end are crenellated, open panel parapets.

North Side

On the north side of the church, except where former monastic buildings abut, details are generally similar to the south side.

Central Tower

The central tower has two principal stages, both with elaborate Perpendicular panelling. At each corner is a tall, square turret, with upper stages of open tracery panels and pierced spirelets. On both stages on each face is a pair of two-light windows with flanking blind panels. A gablet over each window and each blind panel rises into a tall crocketted finial. Between the pinnacles are crenellated, open panel parapets.

Interior

South Porch

The side walls have blind Perpendicular panelling incorporating a two-light window in each wall, and a lierne vault.

Nave

The two west bays have Perpendicular arcades and a lierne vault. The bays to the east have 12th-century arcades with tall cylindrical piers with convex caps and semi-circular arches in three orders with chevron and billet mouldings. There is a low triforium. In each bay is an arched pair of two-light arched openings with circular shafts, all on a continuous chevron base moulding. Clerestory windows were inserted in the 15th century. A 13th-century quadripartite, ribbed vault rises from clustered, corbelled shafts inserted above and below the triforium string course.

The north nave aisle has composite wall piers with scalloped capitals and a quadripartite vault with plain transverse ribs and double roll diagonal ribs. The south aisle has an early 14th-century ribbed vault with the ribs of the three eastern bays decorated with ball flower.

South Transept

The 12th-century walls are refaced with early Perpendicular panelling integrated with the glazed panels in the south window. On the east and west walls, the panelling is intersected by the inner faces of the raking buttresses supporting the central tower. Moulded wall piers support a complicated lierne vault.

On the east side is a screen incorporating a pair of doorways: on the left leading into the south aisle of the presbytery and on the right the entry to the crypt. The openings have elaborately moulded, ogee-arched heads and arches above, with an angel carved in high relief in a foiled frame on each spandrel. On the pier to the right of the screen is an angled lamp or image bracket, its soffit carved with a miniature vault and incorporating the figures of two masons, the younger apparently falling from the vault.

Within the crossing, the lierne vault is supported on the east and west sides by vertical ribs rising from the crowns of flying arches inserted between the 12th-century piers.

Presbytery

The 12th-century arcades and galleries are faced in the 14th century with grids of Perpendicular panelling, with open panels across the original voids, and continued into the 14th-century clerestory level. The bays are defined by wall shafts supporting the continuation of the lierne vault in the crossing.

North Transept

The 12th-century walls are also faced with 14th-century Perpendicular panelling and have a lierne vault. Rebuilt against the north wall is an elaborate 13th-century stone screen with openings to a narrow, lateral vaulted chamber built as a reliquary. The front is a symmetrical arcade of three bays with an arched doorway in the central bay and a two-light arched window inset in each side bay. There are Purbeck marble shafts with stiff leaf caps on the jambs of the arcade and the openings. Foiled lights appear in the tympana of the arcade arches. The stops to the hoodmould over the central arch are carved with crowned heads.

In the north and south aisles of the presbytery are the 12th-century arcade piers and quadripartite vaulting. Chapels off the ambulatory are vaulted.

Lady Chapel

The bays are defined by moulded wall shafts supporting a lierne vault. Fan vaults appear in both the side chapels. In the east bay on the south side is a canopied sedillia, and on the east wall are the remains of a badly damaged reredos with canopied niches.

Crypt

Between an outer, vaulted, ambulatory aisle and the central area is an arcade of massive piers with some later strengthening. Within the central area, two rows of circular columns support bays of quadripartite groin vaulting.

Fittings

The cathedral contains many important fittings. These include carved wooden canons' stalls with canopies and 58 misericords from around 1350, with 14th-century painted panels on the backs of the stalls on the north side. In the sanctuary is a decorative encaustic tile pavement from 1455, made for Abbot Seabrooke. Stalls and quire and presbytery floors are by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The high altar has an elaborate reredos in Decorated style by Sir George Gilbert Scott with statues in niches by JL Redfern. The medieval pulpitum was refronted in the 19th century and supports an organ in a case with painted pipes from 1665. There is a brass eagle lectern by JF Bentley. In the Lady Chapel is a late 12th-century font from Lancaut. In the north transept is a clock case in Art Nouveau style from 1903 by Henry Wilson.

Stained Glass

The stained glass is of major importance. The glass in the great east window is believed to be a memorial of the Battle of Crecy but also incorporates some other panels of medieval glass. In the east window of the Lady Chapel is a confused assembly of medieval glass of various dates. Except for some medieval fragments, other windows have 19th-century glass of varying quality, the majority by Christopher Whall and his daughter Veronica Whall.

Monuments

The cathedral contains many good funerary monuments of all periods. These include an early 13th-century effigy of Duke Robert (Curthose) of Normandy on a 15th-century tomb chest with an iron hearse frame; a 13th-century canopied effigy of Abbot Serlo; an alabaster effigy of King Edward II on a Purbeck marble chest surmounted by an elaborate arcaded canopy in sumptuous Decorated style from around 1330; a cenotaph monument to Osric as founder of the monastery from around 1330, made for Abbot Parker; the tomb of Abbot Parker with alabaster effigy from around 1535; the chantry chapel of Abbot Seabrooke (died 1457) with alabaster effigy on tomb chest; alabaster effigies of Alderman Abraham Blackleach and wife; in the wall of the nave south aisle under an ogee-arched and vaulted canopy, effigies of Sir Thomas and Lady Brydges; the kneeling figures of Alderman Thomas Machin and wife against a screen of Corinthian columns supporting an entablature from 1615; a half-effigy of Alderman John Jones on a wall tablet from 1630; effigies of Elizabeth Williams and infant from the early 17th century; a tablet to Sarah March by Flaxman from 1784; a bust of the reformer Sir George Onesipherous Paul on a sarcophagus by J Siever from 1820; and a statue of Edward Joiner by Siever. In the choir gallery is a monument with bust to William Little by John Ricketts the Elder of Gloucester.