Hereford Cathedral - Lady Chapel

Lady Chapel

Across from the retro-choir or ambulatory, is the spacious and beautiful Early English Lady Chapel, which is built over the crypt and approached by an ascent of five steps. Of the five beautiful lancet windows at the east end, each with a quatrefoil opening in the wall above it, Fergusson remarked that "nowhere on the Continent is such a combination to be found"; and he brackets them with the Five Sisters at York Cathedral and the east end of Ely Cathedral. They are filled with glass by Cottingham as a memorial of Dean Merewether, who is buried in the crypt below, and is further commemorated here by a black marble slab with a brass by Hardman, recording his unwearied interest in the restoration of the cathedral. In the Lady Chapel are church monuments of Joanna de Kilpec and Humphrey de Bohun, her husband. Joanna was a 14th-century benefactress of the cathedral who gave to the Dean and Chapter an acre (4,000 m²) of land in Lugwardine, and the advowson of the church, with several chapels pertaining to it. On the south side of the Lady Chapel, separated from it by a screen of curious design is the chantry erected at the end of the 15th century by Bishop Audley, who, being translated to Salisbury, built another there, where he is buried. His chantry here, pentagonal in shape, is in two storeys, with two windows in the lower and five in the higher.