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[Illustration: LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL FROM THE WEST.]
THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF LICHFIELD
A DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABRIC AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE EPISCOPAL SEE
BY A. B. CLIFTON
WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
LONDON, GEORGE BELL & SONS, 1900
_First published February 1898_
_Second Edition revised February 1900_
W. H. WHITE AND CO., LTD.
RIVERSIDE PRESS, EDINBURGH
GENERAL PREFACE
This series of monographs has been planned to supply visitors to the
great English Cathedrals with accurate and well illustrated guide-books
at a popular price. The aim of each writer has been to produce a work
compiled with sufficient knowledge and scholarship to be of value to
the student of Archaeology and History, and yet not too technical in
language for the use of an ordinary visitor or tourist.
To specify all the authorities which have been made use of in each case
would be difficult and tedious in this place. But amongst the general
sources of information which have been almost invariably found useful
are:--(1) the great county histories, the value of which, especially
in questions of genealogy and local records, is generally recognised;
(2) the numerous papers by experts which appear from time to time in
the Transactions of the Antiquarian and Archaeological Societies; (3)
the important documents made accessible in the series issued by the
Master of the Rolls; (4) the well-known works of Britton and Willis on
the English Cathedrals; and (5) the very excellent series of Handbooks
to the Cathedrals originated by the late Mr John Murray; to which the
reader may in most cases be referred for fuller detail, especially in
reference to the histories of the respective sees.
GLEESON WHITE,
EDWARD E. F. STRANGE,
_Editors of the Series_.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Concerning any old Cathedral the mass of information is very great,
and the authorities to be consulted many; and perhaps the almost total
absence--as in this case--of a documentary history of the
building of the fabric, makes for a larger bulk of pamphlets and of
communications to the antiquarian journals. Whether or no theory be wiser
than fact, it is certainly more voluminous. Besides the books and papers
mentioned in their place, I have especially to express my indebtedness to
the work on Lichfield by the Rev. William Beresford, one of the "Diocesan
Histories" Series, and to the "Handbook of Lichfield Cathedral" by the
late John Hewitt, the well-known antiquarian. I have also to thank Mr
R. R. Redmayne of Lichfield for much valuable information, as also Mr
C. Harradine, the Principal Verger, whose interest in and knowledge of
the Cathedral are well known in Lichfield; and the Photochrom Co. Ltd.,
Messrs S. B. Bolas & Co., and Mr F. G. M. Beaumont, for the excellent
photographs they have allowed me to reproduce.
A. B. CLIFTON.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.--History of the Cathedral 3