Tuesday 5 July 2022

1970s Norwich | Norwich | Norwich Cathedral | 1970s Norfolk | A place in...


Norwich Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in NorwichNorfolk, dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. It is the cathedral church for the Church of England Diocese of Norwich and is one of the Norwich 12 heritage sites.

The cathedral was begun in 1096 and constructed out of flint and mortar and faced with a cream-coloured Caen limestone. An Anglo-Saxon settlement and two churches were demolished to make room for the buildings. The cathedral was completed in 1145 with the Norman tower still seen today topped with a wooden spire covered with lead. Episodes of damage necessitated rebuilding and the stone spire was erected in 1480. The bosses of Norwich Cathedral are one of the world's greatest mediaeval sculptural treasures that survived the iconoclasm of the Tudor and English Civil War periods.The bosses in the cloisters include hundreds that are carved and ornately painted.

Norwich Cathedral has the second largest cloisters in England, only exceeded by those at Salisbury Cathedral. The cathedral close is one of the largest in Europe and has more people living within it than any other close. The cathedral spire, measuring at 315 ft (96 m), is the second-tallest in England (also second to Salisbury) despite being partly rebuilt after being struck by lightning in 1169, 23 months after its completion, which led to the building being set on fire. Measuring 461 ft (141 m) and 177 ft (54 m) wide at completion, Norwich Cathedral was the largest building in East Anglia. It once had the earliest astronomical clock in England.


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.[3] Building started in 1096 and the cathedral was completed between 1121 and 1145. It was built from flint and mortar and faced with cream-coloured Caen limestone.[4] 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.[4]

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.[5] This allows more correct orientation of the altars than in the more normal kind of radial chapel.

The crossing tower was the last piece of the Norman cathedral to be completed, in around 1140. It is boldly decorated with circles, lozenges and interlaced arcading.[5] The present spire, a stone structure that replaced one made of wood and covered with lead, was added in1480.

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