Lichfield Cathedral

Lichfield Cathedral is dedicated to St Chad and St Mary and has been a site of Christian worship since the 700s. The Cathedral is built on the site of a Saxon Cathedral church that was built to house the bones of St Chad (died in 672). It was built by Bishop Headda and was consecrated in the year 700.

The Saxon church was replaced after the Norman Conquest, and building of a Norman cathedral took place from around the year 1085. Today’s building was begun at the end of the 12th century, taking the place of the earlier Romanesque cathedral.

The cathedral was largely damaged during the Civil War, and restoration work started in 1661, lasting until 1669. Further restoration and renovations have taken place in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

The windows of the Lady Chapel are fitted with some of the finest Flemish medieval stained glass found anywhere.

On display is a very impressive 8th-century carved panel of the Archangel Gabriel, dubbed the ‘Lichfield Angel’, which was discovered under the nave in 2003. However, the Lichfield Angel isn’t always on display as it does sometimes go on tour around the country. Another treasure is the St Chad Gospels (formally known as the Lichfield Gospels, and sometimes still known as the St Teilo Gospels), is an 8th-century Gospel Book housed in the Cathedral’s Chapter House.

Enveloping the cathedral is one of the country’s most unspoilt Cathedral Closes, an enclave previously reserved for clergy and endowed with houses dating mostly from medieval times to the 18th century.