Chichester Cathedral - Architecture

Architecture

Typically for English cathedrals, Chichester has had a long and varied building history marked by a number of disasters. The architectural history of the building is revealed in its fabric because the builders of different periods constructed in different styles and with changing technology. Both inside and outside portions of the original Norman cathedral can be distinguished from the later Gothic work by the massive construction and round-topped windows. Different Gothic styles from the late 12th century through to the 15th can also be identified.

The plan of Chichester is in the shape of a cross, with an aisled nave and choir, crossed by a transept (See below). In typically English manner, the eastern end of the building is long by comparison with the nave, is square ended and has a projecting Lady chapel. Also typically English is the arrangement of paired towers on the western front, and a taller central tower over the crossing. Its plan is unusual for England in having double aisles. Chichester has a cloister on the south side of the building.

Chichester was small, for a Norman cathedral, when compared with Winchester, Peterborough and Ely. The Norman construction of the early 12th century can be seen in the nave, which rises in the usual three stages of arcade, gallery and clerestory. It is similar to remaining Norman work at Winchester, where the arcade is proportionally low, and rests on solid piers rather than columns. In the gallery above, each wide space is divided into two by a column.

After the fire of 1187, the building was given a ribbed vault in the Early English Gothic style and the eastern end was extended from the round ambulatory to form a square retrochoir or presbytery with lancet windows in a style that is transitional between Norman and Gothic. The vault is supported externally by flying buttresses and large terminal pinnacles at the eastern end. At this time the entire interior was refurbished, much of it being refaced with ashlar masonry. Each pier was decorated with delicate shafts of dark Purbeck marble with foliate capitals, contrasting with the squat cushion capitals of the limestone shafts. The nave is divided from the choir by an elegant Perpendicular screen or pulpitum with three arched openings, called the Arundel Screen, which was removed in the mid 19th century but reinstated in 1961.

The design of the central tower, faithfully reproduced by George Gilbert Scott, was of the Early English style, having on each side two tall pairs of openings, surrounded by deep mouldings. The original spire, which also was of masonry rather than of sheathed wood, was built in the late 14th century, by John Mason (died ca 1403), who also built the Vicars' Hall. The style and construction of the spire are obviously based on that of Salisbury Cathedral but it is not as ambitiously tall, probably because of the problem of subsidence. The Lady chapel, constructed to the east of the retro-choir, is a long narrow space, with large windows in the Decorated Gothic style of the late 13th century.

The other buildings related to the cathedral are the free-standing bell-tower of the early 15th century, probably the work of William Wynford who also designed the cloisters, with openings in the Perpendicular style. St Mary's Almshouses in Chichester, which are linked to the cathedral, are a Christian charity dating from the 13th century. The medieval Hospital, associated with the Alms House, is one of only two such buildings in the world, the other being in Germany.