Chester Cathedral
Nestled into the streets of Chester city centre. The cathedral occupies a site in the north eastern corner of the city wall. Hemmed in by the wall itself and the principal Roman thoroughfare, the Via Principalis, running north south through the old Roman fort. It does not have the grandeur of other cathedrals like Lincoln or York, nor the majesty of Wells but hidden along it's southern walls are a myriad of stone carvings, gargoyles, people and animals, dating from the 19th century refurbishment and improvement of the Cathedral fabric. Internally west of the screen in the nave is the Chester imp, and the 13th century misericords canopies and benches of the choir are elaborately carved with biblical scenes and animals, said to be amongst the finest in the country. In the refectory, now open as a public eating place, the Creation Window, by Rosalind Grimshaw, is a fine example of modern stained glass, installed in 2001. Indeed internally the cathedral contains some of the finest surviving ecclesiastical architecture in the country.
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The Cathedral seen from Abbey Green on the north eastern side of the building
Like many English churches of early Christian origin the cathedral in Chester was established on ground with previous religious significance. It is thought that a Druidic temple stood somewhere on the site and was replaced by a temple dedicated to the Roman god Apollo. When Roman Britain converted to the Christian faith in the 4th century the basilica is said to have became dedicated to St Peter and St Paul and during Saxon times there was a chapel dedicated to St Peter on the site. The size of the cathedral buildings that now cover the area make it impossible to establish through archaeological evidence what stood here prior to the creation of the monastery and it's abbey.
Benedictine Monastery
In the early 10th century a church dedicated to St Werburgh and St Oswald was built on the site by Aethelfleda to house the saints remains. Aethelred, Earl of Mercia, husband to Aethefleda was a follower of the cult of St Oswald. St Oswald's being the parish church ministering to the city and housed within the south transept of the abbey building. The dedication to St Peter and St Paul was transferred to a new church, now St Peter's, standing at the cross in the city centre.
St Werburgh's church was later to become a church of secular canons (essentially similar to a cathedral but without a bishop or diocesan responsibilities) and was demolished in 1093 to be replaced by a Benedictine monastery established by Hugh Lupus, first Earl of Chester. Hugh Lupus himself was to become a monk in his final years and was buried within the grounds of the monastery.
Some of the oldest parts of the modern day cathedral date from this period. Built in the Romanesque style with rounded arches the final building to be constructed was the Chapter House in 1250. At this time a modernisation, in the contemporary Gothic style, began. Starting with the Lady Chapel at the east end of the church. This work continued at periods throughout the next 300 years and was not complete at the dissolution in 1538. Notably the western tower was never completed.
St Oswald's Parish Church
Apart from a brief excursion to the guild chapel of St Nicholas which stands opposite the cathedral (now occupied by a chemist's shop) on St Werburgh Street the parish church of St Oswald continued to occupy the south transept until 1881 when the new church of St Thomas in Parkgate Street became the new parish church. In the later years the church was actually walled off from the rest of the cathedral.
Briefly Chester's cathedral was the Church of St John the Baptist, still extant, but in greatly reduced form, near the amphitheatre. Built at a time when the church was split between the Celtic and Roman churches the building of St John's outside of the city walls is testament to the separation of the two factions.
The church is said to have been established in 689 by Aethelred King of Mercia (not the same as the later Earl) after he had had a dream in which God instructed him to build a church in a place where he saw a white hind. It may be built upon the site of an earlier Roman Christian shrine.
In 1075 Peter, Bishop of Lichfield moved his see here after it was decreed that all bishoprics should be associated with major cities. The diocese of Lichfield covered a vast area from the Trent to the Solway Firth. Peter died in 1082 and the succeeding Bishop, Robert of Limesey, moved the see to a wealthy moneastery in Coventry making the see considerably wealthier. St John's became a co-cathedral with Coventry until the 13th century and retained a dean and secular canons and functioned as a collegiate church until the Reformation.
It is to St John's church that King Edgar was rowed by regional kings for consecration after his crowning in Bath. At the dissolution parts of St John's church were demolished. Abbots from St Werburgh's Abbey would receive benediction at St John's upon taking office and at the dissolution it was in St John's that Thomas Clark set up his see before transferring it to the new cathedral.
St John's today is a curious mix. Nestled amongst the ruins of it's former glory. The largely victorian exterior of the surviving part contains some of the countries finest Norman church architecture.
The Dissolution and the Cathedral foundation
At the dissolution in 1538 the St Werburgh's abbey was surrendered to the crown and St Werburgh's shrine destroyed. In 1541 the abbey became the Church of England cathedral of the newly formed Chester diocese. The second monastic abbey of six to be reopened. Newly rededicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin, and endowed with 9 manors and most of the other Cheshire property of the former St Werburgh's abbey. The last abbot of the abbey, Thomas Clarke became the dean of the newly formed cathedral and 4 monks became prebendaries (canon) of the new church. The diocese covered Cheshire, Lancashire and the Richmond archdeaconry, previously of York that occupied an area from Richmond to northern Lancashire and southern Cumbria.
For the first 300 years of it's existence the church suffered from a lack of funds. Frequently repairs were undertaken when they became essential. At the dissolution the abbey's annual income had been assessed at £1,003 5s 11d. In 1551 church plate and bells had to be sold to pay for repairs to the fabric. In 1553 the dean and two prebendaries were committed to the Fleet prison, London, for allegedly removing iron and lead from the cathedral roof. Most of the cathedral's income being spent on the salaries of servants and taxes to the crown (First fruits and tenths: Originally paid to Rome it was a levy on clergy by which they had to pay a portion of their first years salary and subsequently a tenth annually to the crown.). In 1578 it is alleged that the dean and chapter demolished some buildings and that lead, glass and slate were missing. There was also tension between the cathedral and the Chester corporation. The church holding large amounts of land within the city walls. In the 1570's the dean successfully opposed the building of a corn market near the Bishop's residence.
At the fall of Chester in the civil war the cathedral's possessions were seized and the cathedral abolished until the Reformation. Much of the medieval stained glass and a lot of the furnishings including the choir screen were destroyed by puritan troops.
The church is built like many buildings in Cheshire of red sandstone a rock easily carved but liable to weathering. The type of sandstone used by the monks was particularly prone and unlike the harder wearing rock employed by the Romans in the building of the wall the material used in the fabric of the cathedral meant that continual maintenance was required. Outcrops of this rock can be found throughout Chester, Cheshire and the Wirral. A particularly fine example can be found at Thor's Rock near Heswall and on the southern bank of the Dee in Edgar's Field, Chester. Where are the remains of Roman stone quarrying and the Minerva shrine.
By the 19th century the cathedral fabric was in need of extensive restoration. Thomas Harrison, architect of the Grosvenor bridge and the range of buildings along St Werbugh's Street restored the south transept in 1818-1820. But the most substantial work was undertaken under the guidance of George Gilbert Scott in 1868-1876. At a cost of £90,000 the turrets, crenellations, gargoyles and flying buttresses are a result of George Gilbert Scott's Gothic revivalist view of the medieval church. His proposal to build a spire on top of the central tower was rejected and at the time their was disquiet over what appeared to be a reinterpretation of the church structure rather than a restoration of the existing fabric. Scott's work included esternal and internal work. Including the creation of a new choir screen replacing the one that had been destroyed during the civil war. George Gilbert Scott is probably best known as the designer of the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station, London, now restored, and the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park.
In 1882 further work was completed by Sir Arthur Blomfield including the reconstruction of St Werburgh's shrine in the Lady Chapel where it can still be seen. The cloisters were restored and the east window in the refectory and the rood screen designed by Giles Gilbert Scott (grandson of George), architect of Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral and the creator of the traditional British red telephone box, between 1911 and 1913. And in 1939 F. H. Crossley rebuilt the refectory roof.
In 1973-1975 a separate bell tower designed, by George Pace, was constructed after it was found to be too expensive and difficult to replace the dilapidated bell mechanism and bells that had lived in the central tower. Ten of the bells from the cathedral were recast as ring of twelve bells and first rung in 1975. Greatly influenced by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Pace had a passion for combining modern with the conservative in his work whiich is ably demonstrated in this building. A very modern construction with hints of the medieval.
St. Werburgh
Daughter of King Wulfhere of Mercia and St Ermenilda, born in Stone, Staffordshire. Descended from a maternal line of canonised nobility. At a time when local Bishops could canonise people, dead or alive. And who frequently used this power as part of the relationship between nobility and church. She spent much of her life as a nun and was the fourth and last Abbess of the convent at Ely, Cambridgeshire, succeeding her mother in the role. The fourth Abbess to be canonised. The convent at Ely, founded by her great aunt St Etheldra in 673, was destroyed by Danish Vikings in 870 . St Werburgh was commissioned by her uncle King Aethelred, who succeeded her father to the the throne in 675, to reform the Mercian monasteries and to found new ones under his patronage. She is said to have founded the convents of Trentham and Hanbury in Staffordshire, and Weedon in Northamptonshire.
In order to deflect conflict among those who venerated her she was determined to be buried at Hanbury upon her death. But it was in Trentham that she died in 699. After some altercation the body was eventually interred in Hanbury where a number of "miraculous" cures were associated with the saints tomb. After 9 years the remains were moved to a more conspicuous location in the church. The body was found to be remarkably preserved. A sign deemed so divine that it is said to have influenced Werburgh's brother Coenred, who had succeeded Aethelred to the throne of Mercia in 704, to abandon his secular life for religious orders. Here the tomb remained for 160 years, a place of pilgrimage and veneration. But with the threat from Viking raiders in the 9th century. The saints shrine was relocated to the protection of the church of St Peter and St Paul within the city walls of Chester in 875. And in 975 this church was rededicated to St Werburgh and St Oswald.
The presence of St Werburgh's remains in the city became associated with many fortunate events. The saint became to be seen as the protector and patron saint of the city and the cult of St Werburgh became lucrative for the monks. A number of fires destroyed parts of the city within the walls but the church remained unscathed and the saints presence is associated with the unsuccessful attempt by the Welsh under Gruffydd ap Llywelyn to besiege the city in the 11th century.
In 1340 the saints remains were housed within an ornate shrine which at the time of the dissolution was savagely destroyed, the stone works and remains scattered. Today the shrine has been reassembled from those parts that could be retrieved. Although the saints bones have never been recovered.
St Werburgh is often portrayed with a goose a representation derived from a story of an event that is said to have taken place at the convent at Weedon. There are several versions of this story but all of them include the resurrection of a goose.
A flock of geese that had been decimating the crops of the convent was bidden by the steward, on the abbesses instruction, to enter a house, where they were locked up for the night in punishment. This order they dutifully obeyed, heads hung low. But the steward took one of their number to eat. In the morning the saint admonished the geese for their destruction of the crops and released them. But they were not happy and the saint divined that one of their number was missing. She summoned the steward and resurrected the cooked goose. The flock bowed to the lady and flew away. And it is said that geese have never subsequently been seen in Weedon.
St Oswald
A Northumbrian king Oswald had fought against the Mercians under Penda (Aethelred's father), and had been killed by them at the Battle of Maserfield in 641 or 642, now identified with Oswestry (Oswald's Tree), Shropshire.
The veneration of St Oswald is reliant heavily on the manner of his death. Although he is perceived as a very religious man. Having promoted the adoption of the Christian faith within his kingdom. A tree is said to have grown and spring erupted from the ground where an arm of the dismembered body was dropped by a crow as it fled the battle field. At this spot many miracles are said to have taken place. The cult of St Oswald grew with support from the influential Hexham monastery in Northumberland and spread throughout Europe. Killed in battle fighting the pagan Penda of Mercia. The Christian Oswald, King of Northumberland is seen through the centuries as a royal martyr. A king who did much to Christianise Northumberland.
The Consistory Court
This is a curious survival of an ecclesiastical court. The furniture dates from the 16th century and was originally located in the Lady Chapel. It was positioned beneath the south west tower in 1636. A unique example of church influence. The court was used for cases of libel, slander and the proving of wills as well church discipline. Jurisdiction over wills was held by the church from the establishment of the cathedral until 1858. When the Court of Probate Act transferred responsibility to the civil Court of Probate
In the Medieval period the ecclesiastical courts had powers equal to that of the crown. Including that of capital punishment. It was in the Lady Chapel that George Marsh from Bolton was condemned to death by the then Bishop George Coats for preaching the doctrine of Martin Luther and the protestant faith. Refusing to recant his beliefs he was burned at the stake at Chester's place of execution in Boughton in 1555. His ashes subsequently buried by his followers in St Giles Graveyard, Boughton. A memorial now stands by the A51 in Boughton.
Abbey Square
Lying on the northern side of the cathedral is a tranquil secluded square of Georgian brick built houses. Now largely occupied by businesses. These buildings were erected in the mid 18th century for the Dean and Chapter of the cathedral on an area that had been occupied by the kitchen's, bakehouse and brewery of the old abbey. Prior to the Georgian restyling the area behind the Abbey Gateway had enjoyed a measure of independence of city regulation and all manner of business was transacted here.
The Bishop's Palace originally occupied an area now occupied by Barclay's Bank in the south west corner. The Bishop's house is now behind high walls on the north eastern side of the square.
Kaleyard Gate
At the eastern end of Abbey Street that runs eastward from the square to the city wall is the Kaleyard Gate. This breach in the city wall was opened up to allow passage of monks from the abbey to their gardens beyond the eat wall. Permission was given on condition that the gate be closed and secured at curfew every evening and in times of danger and that it would not allow the passage of a man on horse back. Until recently the cathedral authorities have followed the tradition of locking the gate at night and the cathedral still rings the curfew bell, still housed in the central tower at 8.45 every evening.
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