HEREFORD CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

HEREFORD CATHEDRAL

CHAPTER I. – THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING.

The early history of Hereford, like that of the majority of
cathedral churches, is veiled in the obscurity of doubtful
speculation and shadowy tradition. Although the see had
existed from the sixth century, it is not till much later that
we have any information concerning the cathedral itself.

From 755 to 794 there reigned in Mercia one of the most
powerful and important rulers of those times,—King Offa.
He was a contemporary of Charles the Great, and more than
once these two sovereigns exchanged gifts and letters. Under
Offa Mercia became the first power in Britain, and in addition
to much fighting with the West Saxons and the Kentish men
he wrested a large piece of the country lying west of the Severn
from the Welsh, took the chief town of the district which
was afterwards called Shrewsbury, and like another Severus
made a great dyke from the mouth of the Wye to that of the
Dee which became henceforth the boundary between Wales
and England, a position it has held with few changes to the
present day. In church history Offa is of no less importance
than in secular, for as the most powerful King in England he
seems to have determined that ecclesiastical affairs in this
country should be more under his control, or at least supervision,
than they could possibly be with the Mercian church
subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 786, therefore,
he persuaded the Pope to create the Archbishopric of Lichfield.[pg 004]
Although Canterbury regained its supremacy upon Offa’s death
when Lichfield was shorn by a new Pope of its recently acquired
honours, the position gained for the latter see by Offa, though
temporary in itself, must have had lasting and important
influence. Offa is generally held responsible for the murder,
about 793, of Æthelberht, King of the East Angles, who had
been promised his daughter, Æthelthryth, in marriage.

Had Æthelberht been gifted with a knowledge of future
events (which would not have been a more wonderful attribute
than many of the virtues which were ascribed afterwards to
his dead body), he could hardly have desired a more glorious
fate. His murder gained for him martyrdom with its immortal
glory, and he could scarce have met his death under happier
auspices. Visiting a king’s residence to fetch his bride he died
by the order of a man whose memory is sullied by no other
stain, a man renowned in war, a maker of laws for the good of
his people, and eminent in an ignorant age as one who
encouraged learning.

Legend and tradition have so obscured this event that
beyond the bare fact of the murder nothing can be positively
asserted, and the brief statement of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
“792. This year Offa, King of the Mercians, commanded the
head of King Æthelberht to be struck off,” contains all that
we may be certain of.

One writer speaks of a hired assassin, and others lay the
crime at the door of Cynethryth, Offa’s Queen, who is said to
have insinuated that the marriage was only sought as a pretext
to occupy the Mercian throne. Finding her lord’s courage not
equal to the occasion, she herself arranged the end of Æthelberht.
There is talk of a pit dug in his sleeping-chamber
and a chair arranged thereover, which, with an appearance of
luxurious comfort, lured him to his fate. The body was,
according to one writer, privately buried on the bank of the
river “Lugg,” near Hereford.

“On the night of his burial,” says the Monkish Annalist, “a
column of light, brighter than the sun, arose towards heaven”;
and three nights afterwards the figure (or ghost) of King
Æthelberht appeared to Brithfrid, a nobleman, and commanded
him to convey the body to a place called “Stratus Waye,” and
to inter it near the monastery there. Guided by another
column of light, Brithfrid, having placed the body and the[pg 005]
head on a carriage, proceeded on his journey. The head fell
from the vehicle, but having been discovered by a “blind man,”
to whom it miraculously communicated sight, was restored by
him to the careless driver. Arrived at his place of destination,
then called “Fernlega” or “Saltus Silicis,” and which has since
been termed Hereford, he there interred the body. Whatever
the motive for the crime, there is ample evidence of Offa’s
subsequent remorse. In atonement he built monasteries and
churches, and is even said by some to have gone on a pilgrimage
to Rome, though this rests on slight evidence.

The miracles worked at the tomb of the murdered King
were, according to Asser, so numerous and incredible that
Offa, who had appropriated Æthelberht’s kingdom, was induced
to send two bishops to Hereford to ascertain the truth of them,
and it is generally agreed that about A.D. 825 Milfrid, who was
Viceroy to the Mercian King Egbert after the death of Offa
and of his son Egfrid, expended a large sum of money in
building “Ecclesiam egregiam, lapidea structura” at Hereford,
which he consecrated to the martyred monarch, and endowed
with lands and enriched with ornaments.

Although one of the old chroniclers calls it a church of
stone, it is quite uncertain what were the materials, size, or
architectural character of this edifice. It seems, however, that
by 1012, when Bishop Athelstan was promoted to the see, it
had fallen into sheer ruin, or, at any rate, sufficient decay to
necessitate his beginning a new building. Of this no clearer
account has been handed down to us than of Milfrid’s church.
Soon after it was finished Algar or Elfgar, Earl of Chester, son
of the Earl of Mercia, was charged with treason at a Witan in
London, and (though his guilt is still disputed) was outlawed
by Edward the Confessor. He hired a fleet of Danish pirate
ships from the Irish coast, joined King Gruffydd in Wales, and
marched with him into Herefordshire, determining to make
war upon King Edward. Here they began with a victory
about two miles from Hereford over the Earl of that shire
who was a Frenchman, and tried to make his men fight on
horseback in the French fashion, which they did not understand,—the
English way being for the great men to ride to the
field of battle, but there to dismount and fight with their heavy
axes on foot. Earl Ralph, the Frenchman, turned his horse’s
head and fled the field, and the English, encumbered with[pg 006]
their long spears and swords, followed helter skelter. After
killing some five hundred, Ælfgar and Gruffydd turned to
Hereford and came upon the church which Bishop Athelstan
had caused to be built. There they met with a spirited
resistance: amongst other victims seven of the canons were
killed in an attempt to hold the great door of the minster; but,
ultimately, the church and town were burned.

Earl Harold, son of Earl Godwin, himself, when it was too
late, came with half of his army to Hereford, and with his
usual predilection for peace (notwithstanding his valour) soon
after removed the outlawry from Ælfgar, and quiet was
restored.

In 1056, the year following this disaster, the worthy Bishop
Athelstan died at Bosbury. He had been blind for thirteen
years before his death, and a Welsh bishop had acted for him.
His body was interred in the church which he had “built from
the foundations,” and we may therefore suppose that the
“minster” was not entirely destroyed.

In 1057, on the death of Earl Ralph, the Frenchman, so
important was Herefordshire, through its position on the Welsh
borders, and, since it had been strengthened by Harold, such
an important military post was the town of Hereford, that it
became part of his earldom.

From 1055 to 1079 the minster is said to have been in
ruins. At the latter date Bishop Lozing (Robert de Losinga)
began to rebuild the cathedral, and there are vague accounts
that it was in the form of a round church in imitation of a
basilica of Charlemagne which had been built at Aix-la-Chapelle
between 774 and 795. If such a form ever existed it
must have been completely destroyed, as the work of the Norman
period that remains is clearly English both in treatment and in
detail. If this could be proved to be Lozing’s work, then it had
no similarity to the Roman style. The building begun by him
was carried on by Bishop Raynelm, who held the see from 1107
to 1115, and placed on a more regular basis the establishment
of canons living under a rule. These prebendaries or canons
did not live in common like the monks, but in separate houses
near the church. Whether he completed the building or not,
Bishop Raynelm undoubtedly made many additions and
alterations.

We may here quote an interesting account of the duties of[pg 007]
the cathedral treasurer, which were probably settled about
this time. They throw a curious and suggestive light on the
ceremonies of the period. “At Hereford,” says Walcott, “he
found all the lights; three burning day and night before the
high altar; two burning there at matins daily, and at mass, and
the chief hours on festivals; three burning perpetually, viz., in
the chapter-house, the second before S. Mary’s altar, and
the third before the cross in the rood-loft; four before the
high altar, and altar on “Minus Duplicia,” and five tapers in
basons, on principles, and doubles, at mass, prime, and
second vespers, four tapers before the high altar, five in the
basons, thirteen on the beam, and seven in the candelabra;
the paschal and portable tapers for processions. He kept the
keys of the treasury, copes, palls, vestments, ornaments, and
the plate, of which he rendered a yearly account to the dean
and chapter. He found three clerks to ring the bells, light
the candles, and suspend the palls and curtains on solemn
days. He found hay at Christmas to strew the choir and
chapter-house, which at Easter was sprinkled with ivy leaves;
and on All Saints’ day he provided mats.”1

The next great changes were made under Bishop William de
Vere (1186-1199). His work was of transitional character, and
bears much resemblance to the beautiful transitional work at
Glastonbury. He removed the three Norman apsidal terminations
at the east end, doubled the presbytery aisles, thus making
two side chapels in each transept which have since been replaced
by the Lady Chapel with its vestibule.

In a paper read before the Archæological Institute in 1877,
Sir G. G. Scott suggests that the central apse projected one bay
beyond the sides; but this is merely conjecture. A curious
feature in De Vere’s work was his putting columns in the middle
of the central arch. It is probable that the part of the presbytery
we now have was but the beginning of a larger scheme
never carried out, which included building the presbytery and
dividing the eastern wall into two arches instead of one as at
Lichfield and Exeter.

According to Sir Gilbert Scott’s theory, the Early English
Lady Chapel was an extension of the work of Bishop de Vere:
it is especially interesting, and an unique example of its date in
being raised upon a crypt.

[pg 008]

At the Bishop’s palace was a splendid hall of which it seems
likely De Vere was the builder,—at any rate he must have been
the first or second occupier. It was of noble dimensions,
being 110 feet in length, consisting of a nave 23 feet broad,
with aisles 16 feet wide, independently of the columns. This
was divided into five bays by pillars supporting timber arches
formed of two pieces of curved oak. Nearly the whole of the
present Bishop’s palace is included within the space occupied
by this grand hall.

In 1188 when Archbishop Baldwin made pilgrimage into
Wales on behalf of the crusade, he was entertained in this hall
by Bishop de Vere, and doubtless some of those who devoted
themselves to the work were Hereford men.

The central tower of the cathedral, that fine example of decorated
work, covered with its profusion of ball-flower ornament,
was built by, or at any rate during the episcopate of, Giles de
Braose (1200-1215), an ardent opponent of King John.

The remaining examples of decorated date are the inner
north porch (as distinct from the addition of Bishop Booth)
and what remains of the beautifully designed chapter-house, a
decagon in plan, each side except the one occupied by the
entrance being subdivided into five seats.

During the term of office of Bishop Foliot (1219-1234), a
tooth of St. Æthelberht, whose remains had been almost entirely
destroyed by Ælfgar and Gruffuth in 1055, was given to the
cathedral. The donor of this precious relic was Philip de
Fauconberg, Canon of Hereford and Archdeacon of Huntingdon.

The next Bishop, Ralph de Maydenstan, 1234-1239, presented
some service-books to the cathedral.

In 1240 Henry III., with his wonted preference for foreigners,
appointed to the Hereford bishopric, Peter of Savoy, generally
known as Bishop Aquablanca, from Aqua Bella, his birthplace,
near Chambéry. He it was who rebuilt the north transept.
He was one of the best hated men in England, and not content
with showering benefices upon his relations, he perpetrated
one of the greatest frauds in history in order to raise money to
aid the annexation schemes of Popes Innocent IV. and Alexander
IV. Of these, however, full particulars will be found in
a chapter on the Diocese.

While he was absent in Ireland collecting tithes, attended[pg 009]
by a guard of soldiers, Prince Edward, coming to Hereford to
resist the encroachments of Llewellyn, King of Wales, found
there neither bishop, dean, nor canons resident. For this they
earned the severe reprimand of the King, and the Bishop returned
to Hereford. Shortly after, he was seized within the
cathedral precincts by the insurgent barons of Leicester’s party,
together with all the foreign canons (who were his own relations).
They were carried to Eardisley Castle, where the spoil they had
just brought from Ireland was divided among the insurgents.

Bishop Aquablanca died soon after these events, in 1268.
He was endowed with a character full of contradictions, extreme
aggressiveness, mingled with remarkable tact.

When he got the better of the Hereford citizens, after their
attempt to encroach upon his episcopal rights, he remitted one
full half of their fine and devoted the other to the cathedral
building. While he was showing in his life a disgraceful example
to the clergy of the country, at the same time he gave liberally
to the cathedral foundation in books, ornaments, money, and
land, left a rich legacy to the poor, and a lasting monument in
the rebuilding of the north transept of the cathedral itself.

With the exception of the arches, leading into the aisles of the
nave and choir, the Norman work of the transept was altogether
demolished, and replaced by another consisting of two bays with
an eastern aisle. Over the latter was built a story now used as
the cathedral library, which is approached from the north aisle
of the presbytery by a staircase turret. His tomb is one of the
finest in the cathedral. Under it, together with those of his
nephew, a Dean of Hereford, are his own remains, except the
heart, which, as he had wished, was carried to his own country
of Savoy.

In 1275 the Chapter of Hereford elected to the bishopric
Thomas de Cantilupe, one of the greatest men who has ever
held that office, a man whose life was in almost every way a
remarkable contrast to that of his predecessor, Bishop Aquablanca.
It is said that the Bishop of Worcester, his great-uncle,
asked him as a child as to his choice of a profession, and
that he answered he would like to be a soldier. “Then,
sweetheart,” his uncle is said to have exclaimed, “thou shalt be
a soldier to serve the King of Kings, and fight under the
banner of the glorious martyr, St. Thomas.” Regular attendance
at mass was his custom from earliest years. Both at Oxford[pg 010]
and Paris he distinguished himself, gaining his degree of M.A.
at the Sorbonne, and on his return accepted, at the request of
the university of Oxford and with the consent of the King, the
office of chancellor. In this capacity he showed singular
courage and determination in repressing a brawl between the
southern scholars and those of the north, in which we are told
he escaped with a whole skin, but not with a whole coat.

He was chosen to fill the post of Chancellor of England
under Simon de Montfort, at whose death, however, he was
deprived of the office. It was some years after this that he
became Bishop of Hereford, and was consecrated at Canterbury,
September 8th, 1275. No Welsh bishop attended the consecration.

After he became a bishop he still wore his hair-shirt and
showed ever intense devotion in his celebration of divine
service. He was remarkable in the steadfastness and ability
he displayed in maintaining the rights of the see. Gilbert de
Clare, Earl of Gloucester, claiming a certain “chace” near
Malvern Forest, whence came the Bishop’s supply of game, found
a relentless opponent in Bishop Cantilupe. The Bishop was
prepared with the customary “pugil” or champion (who
received 6s. 8d. per annum), though his services were not
required. The Earl was excommunicated, and appealing to
the law in a trial Bishop Cantilupe eloquently maintained his
right to capture “buck, doe, fawn, wild cat, hare, and all
birds pertaining thereto,” and as a result of the verdict being
in his favour, caused a long trench to be dug on the crest of
the Malvern Hills as a boundary line, which is still traceable.

Llewellyn, King of Wales, was made to restore three manors
of which he had obtained unlawful possession; and Lord
Clifford, for cattle-lifting and maltreating the Bishop’s tenants,
was compelled to walk barefoot to the high altar in the
cathedral, while the Bishop personally chastised him with a
rod.

Many cases did he fight out successfully, but his greatest
struggle was on a question of testamentary jurisdiction with
Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, by whom he was ultimately
excommunicated and obliged to leave the country,
attended by Swinfield, his faithful chaplain.

He obtained a decree in his favour from Pope Martin IV.,
but died on the homeward journey on August 25th, 1282.[pg 011]
He was buried in the church of St. Severus, near Florence; but
his bones having been divided from the flesh by boiling, were
later carried to England and solemnly placed in the Lady
Chapel of the cathedral. It is said that the Earl of Gloucester,
with whom Bishop Cantilupe had had the dispute about the
chace, attended the ceremony, and that blood began to flow
from the bones when he approached the casket containing
them; upon which the Earl immediately restored the property
he had taken unjustly from the church.

Forty years later Bishop Cantilupe was canonised. It is
said, amongst other evidences of his saintliness, that he never
allowed his sister to kiss him. Three hundred sick people are
said to have been cured at the place of his interment, and so
many candles were presented by the crowds of visitors that
Luke de Bray, the treasurer of the cathedral, had a dispute with
the prebendaries as to the value of the wax, two-thirds being
finally assigned to the treasurer and one-third to the prebendaries.

After five years Bishop Cantilupe’s bones were removed to
the Chapel of St. Katherine, in the north-west transept, on
Maundy Thursday, April 6th, 1287, in presence of King
Edward I. They were again twice moved in the sixteenth
century to the Lady Chapel and back again to the north-west
transept.

The building of the chapter-house may have spread over
some part of Cantilupe’s episcopate, and probably part of the
cloisters were erected about this time.

The miracles said to have been wrought at the shrine of St.
Cantilupe are both many and various. More than sixty-six
dead people are said to have been restored to life. The saint’s
intervention appears to have been extended even to animals,
as we find that King Edward I. twice sent sick falcons to be
cured at this tomb. So great was the reverence for the saint
that the See of Hereford was allowed by the Crown to change
its armorial bearings for the arms of Cantilupe, which all its
bishops have since borne.

Bishop Cantilupe was succeeded by his devoted chaplain,
Richard Swinfield, an excellent preacher and a man of agreeable
manners. Bishop Swinfield, like his predecessor, stoutly vindicated
the rights and discipline of his diocese, once against
a layman for taking forcible possession of a vacant benefice,[pg 012]
another time against a lady for imprisoning a young clergyman
in her castle on a false charge, and also against the people of
Ludlow for violating the right of sanctuary, and in many cases
against abuses of all sorts. On one occasion Pontius de Cors,
a nephew of Bishop Aquablanca, who had obtained from the
Pope the provision of the prebend of Hinton, interrupted the
installation of Robert de Shelving appointed by Bishop
Swinfield, gained admission to the cathedral with an accomplice,
and was formally installed by him in spite of the remonstrance
of the Chapter. He held his place by force of arms during
that day and the next, but later submitted to the Bishop.

Bishop Swinfield was probably the builder of the nave-aisles
and of the two easternmost transepts. This amounted to a
remodelling of the work of De Vere. The bases of his piers
and responds were retained and may still be seen, and upon the
former octagonal columns were erected to carry the vaulting.
The windows were altered throughout. It was in his time that
the “Mappa Mundi,” the curious map of the world designed by
Richard of Haldingham of Battle in Sussex, a prebendary of
Hereford in 1305, now preserved in the cathedral, came into
possession of the Chapter.

Richard Haldingham was a great friend of Bishop Swinfield,
and when it was necessary for him to send representatives to a
provincial Council in London, A.D. 1313, Haldingham was
deputed to attend with Adam of Orleton, a place belonging to
the Mortimers of Wigmore in the north-east of Herefordshire.

Three years later (1316), on the death of Bishop Swinfield
at his chief residence, Bosbury, Adam of Orleton succeeded
him in the bishopric.

King Edward II. was not jubilant over the appointment of a
friend of Roger Mortimer to this important position, and, failing
to persuade Adam to decline the bishopric, he appealed to the
Pope, begging him to cancel the appointment, but with no
more success. The fortunes of the Bishop of Hereford became
identified with the Queen, whom he joined on her return from
France with her eldest son. It was at Hereford that this youth,
then fourteen years of age, was appointed guardian of the
kingdom under the direction of his mother.

The King, who had sought refuge in Wales, was captured at
Neath Abbey, and the great seal taken from him by Bishop
Adam Orleton, while the Chancellor, Hugh Despenser, was conveyed[pg 013]
to Hereford, where he was crowned with nettles and
dressed in a shirt upon which was written passages from Psalm
lii. beginning, “Why boastest thou thyself, thou tyrant: that
thou canst do mischief.” Amid the howlings of a great multitude
who mocked his name by shrieking “Hue!” he was finally
hanged on a gallows 50 feet high and then quartered. Among
the prisoners were two wearing holy orders, and these the Bishop
of Hereford claimed as his perquisite.

A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.

Bishop Adam, wary, unscrupulous, but at the same time
vigorous and of unusual ability, played a great part in politics
to the end of the wretched King’s life. Some historians still
believe that he recommended the murder; he certainly supported
the deposition in Parliament, and went to Kenilworth as one of
the commissioners to force the King’s resignation. If thus
interested in secular politics, he was no less watchful and vigilant
in the affairs of his bishopric and the cathedral.

The great central tower, destined centuries later to be a
source of such anxiety and a problem of such difficulty to the[pg 014]
restorer, was even at this early date showing signs of dilapidation,
and Bishop Orleton obtained from Pope John XXII. a
grant of the great tithes of Shenyngfeld (Swinfield) and Swalefeld
(Swallowfield) in Berkshire, in answer to the following
petition:—”That they, being desirous of rebuilding a portion of
the fabric of the Church of Hereford, had caused much super-structure
of sumptuous work to be built, to the adornment of
the House of God, upon an ancient foundation; which in the
judgment of masons or architects, who were considered skilful
in their art, was thought to be firm and sound, at the cost of
20,000 marcs sterling and more, and that on account of the
weakness of the aforesaid foundation, the building, which was
placed upon it now, threatened such ruin, that by a similar
judgment no other remedy could be applied short of an entire
renovation of the fabric from the foundation,—which, on account
of the expenses incurred in prosecution of the canonisation of
Thomas de Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford, of blessed memory,
they were unable to undertake.” The “sumptuous work”
alluded to was evidently the central tower and the north
transept; which latter had been built, as mentioned before,
for the remains and shrine of Bishop Cantilupe.

When Mr. R. Biddulph Phillips, some sixty years ago, was
examining the confused and unsorted mass of charters and
grants in the possession of the cathedral, he found a parchment
(which bore the two beautiful episcopal seals of Bishop Roger
le Poer of Sarum and Bishop Adam de Orleton of Hereford)
that acknowledged and confirmed this grant of tithes to the
sustentation of the fabric of the cathedral, which still forms
the backbone of the fabric fund. In 1328 Bishop Orleton was
translated to Worcester.

During the ensuing war with France, the church walls echoed
with prayers for the King’s success, and, while the war-cloud still
darkened the political sky, orisons louder and more heartfelt
filled the cathedral. It is said that when the “Black Death”
reached Hereford in 1349, to retard its progress in the city the
shrine of St. Thomas de Cantilupe was carried in procession.

About this time, and possibly not unconnected with the
calamity of this terrible plague, Bishop Trilleck issued a
mandate prohibiting the performance of “theatrical plays and
interludes” in churches as “contrary to the practice of religion.”
The exact character of these performances is doubtful, and the[pg 015]
prohibition may have referred to some kind of secular mumming.
The mystery play survived long after Bishop Trilleck’s time in
an annual pageant exhibited in the cathedral on Corpus Christi
Day, to assist in which some of the city guilds were obliged by
the rules of their incorporation.

The quarrels between the townspeople and the Bishop about
his rights of jurisdiction continued with more or less frequency.
It must certainly have been irritating to good Bishop Trilleck
“gratus, prudens, pius” as the mutilated inscription on his
effigy describes him, when one William Corbet forced his way
into the palace, carried away the porter bodily, shut him in the
city gaol, and took away the keys of the palace.

On the second visitation of the “Black Death,” 1361-2, it is
said that the city market was removed from Hereford to a place
about a mile on the west of the town, still marked by a cross
called the “White Cross” bearing the arms of Bishop Charleton.

If Bishop Orleton was deeply concerned in the deposition of
King Edward II., a later Bishop of Hereford, Thomas Trevenant,
who was appointed in 1389 by papal provision, was no less
active in the deposition of King Richard II., and was sent to
the Pope with the Archbishop of York by Henry IV. to explain
his title to the Crown and announce his accession.

In 1396, during the episcopate of Bishop Gilbert, the priest
vicars of the cathedral were formed into a college by Royal
Charter, and the first warden or “custos” was appointed by the
King to show that the right of appointment was vested in the
Crown. The college was to have a common seal, and to
exercise the right of acquiring and holding property, but to be
subject to the Dean and Chapter of the cathedral. Its
members were the priests of the chantry chapels in the
cathedral, at this time apparently twenty-seven in number.

In 1475 the college was moved from Castle Street to its
present site, so that the vicars should be able more comfortably
to attend the night services. An order was also made about
this time concerning the celebration of mass at the altar of St.
John Baptist in the cathedral, an arrangement which shows that
then as now the parish of St. John had no church of its own
outside the cathedral walls.

About 1418, the cloister connecting the Bishop’s palace with
the cathedral was begun by Bishop Lacy, who took great interest
in the cathedral although he never visited his diocese. It was[pg 016]
upon this work of the cloisters that 2800 marks were expended
by Bishop Spofford, 1421-1448, in whose time the great
west window was erected by William Lochard, the precentor.
The richly panelled and vaulted chapel of Bishop Stanbury,
approached from the north aisle of the presbytery, was added
between 1453 and 1474.

In 1492 Edmund Audley, the Bishop of Rochester, was
translated to Hereford, and during his episcopate founded the
two-storied chantry chapel south of the Lady Chapel and
near the shrine of St. Thomas of Cantilupe. The upper story
was probably intended as a private oratory for the Bishop
himself. Bishop Audley also presented
to the cathedral a silver shrine.

THE AUDLEY CHAPEL.

The next important alteration was
the lengthening of the great north
porch which bears the date 1519 and
the shields of Bishop Booth and his
predecessor, Bishop Mayo. It is a
very fine piece of Perpendicular work,
somewhat similar in design to the porch
in the middle of the west front of
Peterborough Cathedral. At his death
Bishop Booth left various books to the
cathedral library and some tapestry for
the high altar, together with silver and
gold ornaments for the Cantilupe
Shrine. The tapestry displayed the
story of David and Nabal. He also
bequeathed, amongst other things to his successor, the gold
ring with which he was consecrated, but notwithstanding his
forethought in specifying that these articles were not to be
taken away with such successor in case of his translation, they
have disappeared. Little could Bishop Booth have imagined,
in the enthusiasm of his building operations, the changes to
follow so closely upon his death. Yet the papal supremacy
had been abolished in this country in 1534, and though the
church services remained unaltered, the amended Primer had
been published. On September 26th, 1535, was consecrated at
Winchester, to the See of Hereford, one of the most “excellent
instruments” of the Reformation, Edward Foxe, and in the
following year the suppression of the monasteries began in[pg 017]
serious earnest. Still the chantry chapels were to be spared
for some time. Of these chantries and chapels there were
then no less than twenty-one in the cathedral.

In 1553, commissioners were appointed to visit the churches,
chapels, guilds, and fraternities all over the kingdom and take
inventories of their treasures, leaving to each parish church or
chapel “one or two chalices according to the multitude of
people.” In Hereford Cathedral, amongst other valuable ornaments,
was a chalice of gold weighing 22 lbs. 9-1/2 oz., two
basins weighing 102 oz., and an enamelled pastoral staff in five
pieces of silver gilt weighing 11 lbs. 7 oz. 3 dwts. troy. It is
not possible to learn the value of the goods appropriated in the
cathedral alone, but the jewels and plate of the whole country
were estimated at 4860-1/4 ounces, in value about £1213, 1s. 3d.

On August 22nd or 25th, 1642, the Royal Standard was set
up at Nottingham, and the clouds of the Great Rebellion burst
over the country. Bishop Coke of Hereford had been one
of the twelve churchmen most active against the Bill for
excluding the bishops from Parliament, passed in the Commons
in May 1641, and was one of the ten bishops committed to
the Tower by the joint sentence of the Lords and Commons
on charge of treason.

The “popishly inclined” county of Hereford was at one
with its Bishop, but so unprepared for war that Lord Stamford,
with two troops of cavalry and a single infantry regiment,
entered Hereford under the orders of the Earl of Essex and
quartered himself in the Bishop’s palace. Here he remained
till December 14th without, however, any serious plundering
in the town itself. In April 1643, Waller took the city for the
second time, and again without much resistance, a condition of
the surrender being the immunity of the Bishop and cathedral
clergy from personal violence and plunder. On his leaving
Hereford the place was retaken by the Royalists, and became
an asylum for fugitive Roman Catholics. So it went on, being
held first by one side and then by the other. In the autumn
of 1645 Hereford was besieged by Lord Leven with the
Scottish army, who were driven off by Colonel Barnabas
Scudamore with heavy loss.

The cathedral at this time suffered considerable injury
during the siege. The defenders used the lead from the
chapter-house roof to cover the keep of the castle, and possibly[pg 018]
also to make bullets. Finally, on December 18th, through
the treachery of Colonel Birch, the governor of the city, Hereford
was once more taken, and this time the whole place was
overrun by a rabble of plundering soldiery.

No doubt much damage had been done in the cathedral
during the Reformation, but despite the protests of an antiquarian
captain, one Silas Taylor, far greater mischief was perpetrated
in this military loot. “The storied windows richly dight”
were smashed to bits, monumental brasses torn up, the
library plundered of most valuable MSS., and rich ornaments
stolen.

Some while after the Restoration, an appeal was made by
the cathedral clergy to the nobility, baronets, knights, esquires,
and gentry of the county for help towards restoring the cathedral,
though it is not known with what welcome the appeal was
received.

Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century much harm
was done to the cathedral by the zeal of Bishop Bisse, one
of those irritating people who mean well but act abominably.
He spent much, both on the palace and the cathedral,
employing in the alterations of the former the stones of the
chapter-house, which had been doubtless much injured but not
irreparably so. In the cathedral itself he erected a mass of
masonry intended to support the central tower, which was,
however, nothing but a hideous architectural blunder. In
itself it was ugly to behold, and actually weakened by lateral
pressure that which it was intended to support. He also
presented an elaborate altar-piece and Grecian oak screen with
scenic decoration above, boards painted to represent curtains,
and wooden imitations of tassels which hung immediately over
the heads of the ministering priests as they stood at the altar.
These were found later on to be hung on rusty nails by twine
“little better than pack thread.”

THE WEST FRONT (FROM AN OLD PRINT).

During the episcopate of the Hon. Henry Egerton, 1723-1746,
an ancient building of early Norman date used as a
chapel for the palace was pulled down. It consisted of an
upper and a lower portion, the lower a chapel dedicated to St.
Katherine and the upper one to St. Mary Magdalene. Part of
one wall still remains. It was during the next episcopate, on
Easter Monday 1786, that a terrible calamity occurred,—the fall
of the great western tower. Directly and indirectly this was[pg 021]
the worst accident that has happened to Hereford Cathedral.
The west front was utterly destroyed, and a great part of the
nave seriously injured, while the injudicious restoration begun
in 1788 by the Dean and Chapter, with James Wyatt for
architect, did nearly as much to ruin the cathedral as the fall
of the tower.

THE NAVE AFTER THE FALL OF THE WEST END.

From a drawing by T. Hearne, 1806.

Already, at Salisbury, Wyatt had been busy with irreparable
deeds of vandalism, but at Hereford he surpassed his previous
efforts in this direction. He altered the whole proportion of
the building, shortening the nave by a bay of 15 feet, erected
a new west front on a “neat Gothic pattern,” and availed
himself of the chance of removing all the Norman work in the
nave, above the nave arcade substituting a design of his own.

One of the strangest items in his scheme was a plaster hod
moulding round each of the arches above the arcade. These
eccentricities were removed not long since, but the roughened[pg 022]
lines for adhesion of the plaster still remain. Inside the west
front may also still be seen large spaces of wall painted to
represent blocks of stone, but no more so in reality than the
wall of any stucco residence.

It should not be forgotten, while condemning the meaningless
insipidity of Wyatt’s work, that it was enthusiastically approved
in his own day, and that the public generally were as much to
blame as himself.

The old spire was taken down from the central tower, and
in order to give it apparent height the roofs of both nave and
choir were lowered in pitch, its parapet was raised, and some
pinnacles were added.

At the same time the churchyard was levelled and new
burying-grounds provided for the city elsewhere.

In 1837, Dr. Thomas Musgrave was promoted to the See of
Hereford. He was a man of sound judgment and of much
practical ability, and it was during his episcopacy that a serious
competent and thorough repair of the cathedral was at last
undertaken at a cost of £27,000, to which no one devoted
more loving care or more untiring energy than Dean
Merewether.

“Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses
and this house lie waste?” he quotes in the beginning of his
exhaustive “Statement of the condition and circumstances of
the Cathedral Church of Hereford in the year 1841.” In this
statement he shows the lamentable state of decay in the
eastern end of the Lady Chapel, the bulging of its walls and
the dangerous fissures, which, on the removal of whitewash
and plaster, became visible in the soffit of each of the window
arches.

In early times the walls were very much thicker, composed
of hewn stone, making a kind of casing at each side, called
ashlar, the interval being filled with rubble masonry cemented
with lime and loam. This stuffing having deteriorated the
weight above had split the outer wall, though most fortunately
the interior face was perfectly sound and upright.

To trace the cracks thoroughly, it was necessary to remove
the oak panelling fitted to the wall below the windows, and
the heavy bookcases filling up a great part of the area were
taken away with the lath and plaster partition from the sides
of the pillar at the west end of the chapel.

THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

[pg 024]

By this clearing the beauty of the chapel so long obscured
became again manifest: its symmetrical proportions, the remains
of its ancient painting, the disclosure of two most interesting
monuments, two aumbries, a double piscina, the chapel of
Bishop Audley, but more important than all, two of the most
beautiful specimens of transition arches to be found anywhere,
Early English in form, but ornamented in their soffits with
the Norman moulding and the zigzag decoration, corresponding
with the remarkable union of the Norman intersecting
arches on the exterior of the building, with its pointed
characteristics.

The further examination by Dean Merewether and Mr.
Cottingham, the architect, showed that the great central tower
of the cathedral was in imminent danger of falling, and might
at any moment entirely collapse.

Above the Grecian altar screen of Bishop Bisse they were
struck by the traces of Norman mouldings, whilst on traversing
the clerestory gallery the remains of Norman ornaments were
everywhere to be found, the gallery itself being still existent
at each side, returned behind the wooden coverings, up to the
splays of the eastern windows.

The whole incongruous covering of the east end of the choir
shown on p. 77 was then removed, and the change effected
was most striking. It was evident that long before the introduction
of the Grecian screen in 1717, the original arrangement
had been disturbed by the insertion of a Perpendicular window,
to support which the low circular arch in the centre had been
constructed; on either side of this window were now to be
seen the mouldings and featherings of the original early
decorated lights, on a level with the lateral clerestory range;
below these the Norman arcade, based upon a string course of
nebule ornaments.

“But below,” says Dean Merewether, “the beauty of beauties
was to be traced,—the thickness of that part of the wall is
8 feet; on either side of the arch, 24 feet in span, were
portions of shafts, corresponding with the pair of Norman
shafts exposed to view seven years ago. The bases of these
(standing on a sort of plinth, which was continued through
those already referred to), as well as the capitals, of most
curious detail, were perfect, and upon them were visible as far
as the level of the window above, the remaining stones which[pg 025]
formed the architecture of the exterior arch, from which it was
evident that its crown must have risen to the height of 30
feet. By cautious examination of the parts walled up, it was
discovered that the capitals were all perfect, and that this
exquisite and grand construction, the mutilation and concealment
of which it is utterly impossible to account for, was, in
fact, made up of five arches, the interior and smallest supported
by the two semi-columns already described, and each of the
others increasing in span as it approached the front upon
square and circular shafts alternately, the faces of each arch
being beautifully decorated with the choicest Norman ornaments.
Of the four lateral arches, the two first had been not only
hidden by the oak panelling of the screen, but were also, like
the two others, closed up with lath and plaster, as the central
arch; and when these incumbrances and desecrations were
taken away, it is impossible to describe adequately the glorious
effect produced, rendered more solemn and impressive by the
appearance of the ancient monuments of Bishops Reynelm,
Mayew, Stanbury, and Benet, whose ashes rest beneath these
massive arches, of which, together with the noble triforium
above, before the Conquest, Athelstan had probably been the
founder, and the former of those just mentioned, the completer
and restorer after that era.”

Under Mr. Cottingham many improvements were made,
though it cannot be said that all the work he did was good
either in design or execution. The beautiful lantern of the
central tower, with its fifty-six shafts, was satisfactorily
strengthened and thrown open to view. At the time of
Dean Merewether’s death in 1850 much still remained to be
done, and in 1857 a further scheme was set going under the
financial management of Dean Richard Dawes, and the architectural
direction of Mr., afterwards Sir Gilbert, Scott, who
restored the north transepts, the north porch, the choir, and
Lady Chapel. He also erected the large metal screen and
fitted up the Lady Chapel as a church for the parish of St.
John the Baptist.

Altogether in these two works of repair about £45,000 was
expended, and the cathedral was opened for service on June
30th, 1863.

CHAPTER II. – THE CATHEDRAL – EXTERIOR.

Artistic unity is certainly not the chief characteristic of
Hereford Cathedral, but it is doubtful whether the absence
of that quality dear to a purist is not more than compensated
for by the fine examples of different periods, which make the
massive pile as a whole a valuable record of historical progress.
And surely it is more fitting that a great ecclesiastical
edifice should grow with the successive ages it outlasts, and
bear about it architectural evidence of every epoch through
which it has passed.

Almost in the midst of the city the sturdy mass of the
cathedral building reposes in a secluded close, from which the
best general view is obtained. The close is entered either
from Broad Street, near the west window, or from Castle
Street; the whole of the building lying on the south side of
the close between the path and the river. The space between
the Wye and the cathedral is filled by the Bishop’s Palace and
the college of the Vicars Choral.

On the east are the foundations of the castle, which was
formerly one of the strongest on the Welsh marches.

The cathedral is especially rich in architecture of the
Norman, Early English, and Early Decorated periods.

The work of the Norman builders, found chiefly in the
interior, survives in the exterior aspect rather in the “sturdy”
quality remaining through the subsequent building being imposed
upon the old foundations. The side apses of the
original triple eastern termination were converted into the
present eastern transept; an operation, the result of which
helps to produce an intricate outline already irregular through
the projections of the porch of Bishop Booth.

[pg 027]

The Central Tower, a splendid example of Decorated
work, is of two stages above the roofs, with buttresses at the
angles. It is covered with a profusion of ball-flower ornament,
which, except in the south nave aisle of Gloucester Cathedral,
is nowhere else so freely used.

BISHOP BOOTH’S PORCH AND NORTH TRANSEPT.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

Pershore Abbey is not far from Hereford, and from the
disposition of the upper windows of the central tower and the[pg 028]
style and position of the dividing pilasters and bands of
ornament, it seems likely that the earlier lantern of Pershore is
partly responsible for its design.

In old prints of the cathedral the great central spire which
formerly existed is shown. It was a timber erection, covered
with lead. When this was taken down at the time of the
great repairs and rebuilding of the west end, a stunted, squat
appearance was given to the building. In the year 1830
Canon Russell presented a sum of money to the Dean and
Chapter to build four appropriate pinnacles at the angles.

The tower which formerly stood at the west end was similar
in design to the central one, but rose only one stage above
the leads of the nave. This seems to have been used as a
belfry; whereas the central tower was a lantern.

The large projecting North Porch, completed in 1530 by
Bishop Booth, is Perpendicular, and somewhat resembles,
though it is later in date, the porch in the centre of the west
front at Peterborough. The front entrance archway has highly
enriched spandrels and two lateral octagonal staircase buttress
turrets at the angles. These have glazed windows in the
upper portions, forming a picturesque lantern to each. This
outer porch consists of two stories, the lower of which is
formed by three wide, open arches, springing from four piers
at the extreme angles, two of which are united with the staircase
turrets, the others with the ends of the old porch. The
upper story, containing an apartment, is sustained on a vaulted
and groined roof, and has three large windows, with elaborate
tracery.

In the north transept the massive buttresses with bevelled
angles, of which those at the angles are turreted, with spiral
cappings, the remarkable windows, tall without transoms, and
rising nearly the whole height of the building, show to great
advantage. The clerestory windows, like those in the outer
wall of the triforium in the nave of Westminster, are triangular
on the exterior.

On the eastern side of this transept, which has an aisle, is
an unusual architectural feature. The windows of the triforium
have semi-circular arched mouldings, enclosing a
window of three lights of lancet-shaped arches. Beneath the
aisle window is a pointed arched doorway, which was probably
an original approach to the shrine of Cantilupe.

[pg 029]

In the angle is a staircase turret, which is circular at the
bottom and polygonal above; and this probably was an access
to a private apartment for a monk over the aisle of the transept
containing the sacred shrine.

Continuing an examination of the north side of the cathedral
one notices the buttresses of the north-east transept, the
Stanbury Chapel, the windows, parapet, and roof of the aisle,
the clerestory windows with arcade dressings to the walls,
and the modern parapet above the whole.

GENERAL VIEW, FROM THE WEST.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

The style of the arcade and window, and also the blank
window or double arch, with two smaller arches within the
clerestory wall, claims especial attention, as well as the ribbed
roof rising above the Norman triforium.

We now come to the Early English work of the Lady
Chapel, the east end of which is especially noticeable, with
its bold angular buttresses rising from immense bases. The
numerous and large base mouldings running round the wall
of this building, its tall lancet-shaped windows, arcades, and
ovolar and lozenge-shaped panels, are so many interesting
peculiarities of design.

[pg 030]

The Audley Chapel projects on the south side. The angular,
embattled parapet at the end is a modern addition.

The south side of the cathedral is not easily examined by
the public, being shut within the walls of a garden between the
Bishop’s and the Vicars’ Cloisters.

The Bishop’s Cloisters consist of two walks only, or
covered corridors, though that on the west, which was pulled
down in the reign of Edward VI. to make room for a pile
of brick building appropriated to the Grammar School, and
in its turn demolished in 1836, is now in course of restoration.

It does not appear that the cloisters ever had a walk on the
north side against the cathedral.

These cloisters are of Perpendicular date, and between a
continued series of buttresses are windows of large dimensions,
with mullions and tracery.

The vaulting of the roof is adorned with numerous ribbed
mouldings, at the intersections of which are shields charged
with sculptured figures, foliage, arms, etc. These ribs spring
from slender pillars between the windows and corbels heads
on the other side: over the exterior of the windows are carved
grotesque heads, of which we give some illustrations. The
south walk of the cloisters is the more richly groined. At the
south-east corner is a square turreted tower containing a small
chamber, which has been carefully and completely restored.
It has always been called the “Ladye Arbour,” although no
one has been able to discover the origin of this name or the
use to which the chamber was put; many antiquarians suggest
a possible reference to the Virgin.

EXTERIOR OF THE LADY CHAPEL. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.

The entrance doorway to the Chapter-house from the east
walk still remains, but is walled up. It consists of a pointed
arch under a lofty, richly ornamented pedimental moulding,
having clustered shafts on the sides, with foliated capitals.
The archway is divided by a slender pillar into two smaller
openings. The once elegant chapter-room to which this
doorway communicated, whether or not they fell, as Britton
asserts, “beneath the fanatic frenzy of the Cromwellian
soldiers,” was certainly neglected; and then, as long as any
material could be got from it, treated as a stone quarry by
Bishop Bisse and his successors. This chapter-house appears
to have been a beautiful piece of design of the rich Decorated
period. It was decagonal in plan, with a projecting buttress[pg 032]
at each angle. Each side, except the one occupied by the
entrance, was sub-divided into five panels or seats. Remains
of three sides only are left, and these only as far as the
window-sills.

Against the south wall of the cloisters, towards its east end,
are some remains of two Norman chapels, one above the other.
The lower was dedicated to St. Katherine and the upper to
St. Mary Magdalene.

“The form, excepting a portico and choir (i.e. chancel) was
an exact square; four pillars in the middle, with arches every
way, supported the roof; the portico was composed of a
succession of arches retiring inwards, and had a grandeur in
imitation of Roman works; two pillars on each side consisted
of single stones. There was a descent of a few steps to the
lower chapel, which had several pillars against the walls made
of single stones, and an octagonal cupola on the four middle
pillars. The walls were much painted, and the arched roof
was turned with great skill, and resembled the architecture
which prevailed during the declension of the Roman Empire
(see Stukeley, Havergal, etc.).

Mentioning the existence of the doorway and two small
windows in the remaining north wall, the author of The Picturesque
Antiquities of Hereford proceeds to say: “These are
extremely interesting, as they pertained to an edifice which
once stood on the south side of this wall, and is believed to
have been the original church of St. Mary, the patron saint of
the cathedral before the translation of the body of St. Ethelbert.
It was the parish church of St. Mary, to which the residences
in the cathedral close belonged. Transcripts of registers of
marriages there solemnised so late as the year 1730 are existent
in the Dean’s archives.”

A second cloister, known as the Vicars’ Cloister, connects
the Vicars’ College with the south-east transept. The arrangement
here may be compared with that of Chichester, as showing
the most probable plan of the latter before the destruction of
the south walk and its connection with the cloister of the
Vicars Choral.

In the area of the Bishop’s Cloister was formerly a preaching
cross, which fell into a decayed state during the latter part of
the last century. Beneath it was a dome of masonry which
closed the aperture to a well of considerable depth, which had[pg 033]
been formed with great exactness. This well still exists
beneath a plain square stone. Another well was (according
to Stukeley) situated between the College and the Castle Green,
with a handsome stone arch over it.

THE CLOISTERS, WITH THE LADIES’ ARBOUR.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

Building operations are still in progress at Hereford, and it
was proposed to mark the year of Her Majesty’s Jubilee by a
special restoration, dealing principally with the west end and
central tower.

CHAPTER III. – THE INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL.

The Cathedral is usually entered from the north-west through
the beautiful parvise porch of Bishop Booth. The lower stage
of this porch is formed by three arches with octagonal turrets
at their outer angles. These turrets are each capped by a
lantern. The second stage has three fine Perpendicular
windows. The doorway, which actually opens into the church,
belongs to a smaller porch within this outer one. The inner
porch is of the Decorated period. There is some particularly
good iron-work on the doors, made by Messrs Potter from
designs by Mr. Cottingham, junior.

Hereford has a smaller area than either of the other two
sister cathedrals, being only 26,850 feet in extent.

THE NORTH PORCH.

The Nave, which is separated from the aisles by eight
massive Norman piers (part of the original church), of which
the capitals are worthy of notice, has somewhat suffered by
restorations at the hand of Wyatt. The triforium, the clerestory,
the vaulting of the roof and the western wall and doorway
are all his work; and it must not be forgotten that he
shortened the original nave by one entire bay. Walking to the
west end, from which the best general view is to be obtained,
one is impressed by the striking effect of the great Norman
piers and arches and the gloom of the choir beyond. Through
the noble circular arches, which support the central tower and
the modern screen on the eastern side of it, we see the eastern
wall of the choir, pierced above by three lancet windows and
below by a wide circular arch receding in many orders. A
central pillar divides this lower arch, two pointed arches
springing from its capital and leaving a spandrel between them,
which is covered with modern sculpture. In the far distance[pg 036]
may be distinguished the east wall of the Lady Chapel and
its brilliant lancet lights.

Throughout the Cathedral the Norman work is remarkable
for the richness of its ornament as compared with other buildings
of the same date, such as Peterborough or Ely.

The main arches of the nave are ornamented with the billet
and other beautiful mouldings, and the capitals of both piers
and shafts are also elaborately decorated. The double half
shafts set against the north and south fronts of the huge circular
piers are in the greater part restorations.

Over each pier arch there are two triforium arches imitated
from the Early English of Salisbury. They are divided by
slender pillars, but there is no triforium passage.

During the Late Decorated period the nave-aisles were
practically rebuilt, the existing walls and windows being erected
upon the bases of the Norman walls, which were retained for a
few feet above the foundations. The vaulting of the roofs of
the nave-aisles and the roof of the nave itself were coloured
under the direction of Mr. Cottingham.

The Font, of late Norman design, probably twelfth century,
is in the second bay of the south aisle beginning from the west.

The circular basin is 32 inches in diameter, large enough
for the total immersion of children. Beneath arches round
the basin are figures of the twelve Apostles. These, however,
with one exception, have been much broken. The most
curious feature of this interesting font is the base with four
demi-griffins or lions projecting therefrom. The whole is
protected by a mosaic platform.

Monuments in the Nave.—The first monument on the
south side as we walk from the western end is the fine effigy in
alabaster of Sir Richard Pembridge in plate and mail armour
with his greyhound. This monument was formerly at the
Black Friars Monastery, but was removed here at the Suppression.
Sir Richard Pembridge was a Knight of the Garter (53rd
of that order) at the time of Edward III., and was present at
Poitiers. He died in 1375. There are still traces of colour
on this monument and gold remains on the points of the cap
to which the camail is fastened, as also on the jewelled sword-belt.
A sheaf of green coloured leathers is separated from the
tilting helmet, on which the head rests, by a coronet of open
roses. When the effigy was brought here it had but one leg[pg 037]
left, and that the gartered one. A wooden limb was carved,
and the workman showed such accuracy in duplicating the
stone leg that the Knight was adorned with a pair of garters
for many years until Lord Saye and Sele, Canon Residentiary,
presented the Cathedral with a new alabaster leg, and the
wooden one was banished to a shelf in the library.

THE NAVE.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

Under a foliated Decorated arch in the wall in the fifth bay
is the carved figure of an unknown ecclesiastic. The effigy
is headless and otherwise much mutilated.

In the sixth bay is another mutilated and headless figure,
under a foliated arch, which is crowned by a bearded head
wearing a cap. It is thought to be the monument of a former
treasurer.

In the fifth bay a quaint door leads from the aisle to the
Bishop’s Cloister. This has a square heading which rises
above the sill of the window over it. There is an interesting
series of heads in the hollow moulding, which are said to be[pg 038]
copies of earlier work in the same position. The iron-work of
the door itself is modern by Potter. A lofty Norman arch
leads from this aisle into the south transept.

The north aisle of the nave is similar in style to the south.
It contains six memorial windows to Canon Clutton and his
wife, with subjects by Warrenton from the life of St. John the
Baptist.

In the sixth bay from the west of the north wall of the
nave is the effigy and tomb under which is buried Bishop
Booth (1535), the builder of the large projecting porch which
bears his name. The recumbent figure of the Bishop is fully
vested with a mitra pretiosa with pendent fillets. He wears a
cassock, amice, alb, stole, fringed tunic and dalmatic, and
chasuble with orfrays in front. On his feet are broad-toed
sandals; his hands are gloved; a crozier (the head of which
has been broken) is veiled on the right. At this side is a
feathered angel. The original inscription, cut into stone and
fixed above the effigy, remains uninjured:

The iron-work in front of this tomb is the only specimen in
the Cathedral which has not been disturbed, although Mr.
Havergal says “most of our large ancient monuments were
protected by iron railings.” It is divided into six square panels,
having shields and heraldic ornaments.

The beautiful wrought iron Screen, an elaborate example of
artistic metal-work, painted and gilt, executed by Messrs Skidmore
of Coventry, from designs by Sir Gilbert Scott, stands
between the eastern piers of the central tower, a little towards
the nave. The first great piece of metal-work of this kind
executed in England in modern times was the choir screen at
Lichfield, designed and carried out by the same artists as the
Hereford screen; though the latter and subsequent production
transcends that of Lichfield, both in craftsmanship and beauty.

It has five main arches, each subdivided into two sub-arches
by a slender shaft. The central arch is larger and
higher than the others, is gabled and surmounted by a richly
jewelled cross. This forms the entrance, and on either side, to
a height of 4 feet, the lower part of the arches are filled with[pg 039]
tracery in panels. The spandrels between the heads of the
arches are enriched with elaborate ornament in flowing outline.

THE CHOIR SCREEN.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

A variety of foliage and flowers has been worked in thin
plates of copper and hammered iron, in imitation of natural
specimens, and throughout the screen the passion flower is
prominent in the decoration. It is composed of 11,200 lbs.
of iron, 5000 lbs. of copper and brass, 50,000 pieces of vitreous
and other mineral substances in the mosaic panels, and about
300 cut and polished stones. There are also seven bronze
figures, three single figures, and two groups. Of these the
Times, May 29, 1862, well said: “These figures are perfect[pg 040]
studies in themselves. Every one can understand them at a
glance, and from the centre figure of Our Saviour to those of
the praying Angels, the fulness of their meaning may be felt
without the aid of any inscriptions beneath the feet to set
forth who or what they are.”

SECTION THROUGH TOWER AND TRANSEPTS.

The eastern side of the screen, though without statuary, is
no less worthy of inspection. Over the gates the large oval
space is filled with the sacred monogram I.H.C. The base
consists of polished Devonshire marble. The diversity of tint
of the metals used is in itself a source of colour, but the
whole of the hammered iron-work of the foliage has been[pg 041]
painted with oxides of iron and copper, while the colour
scheme is further carried out in the mosaics.

The whole effect is certainly beautiful, and the screen is
perhaps the best example of this kind of work produced in
modern times. The cost of the screen was £3000, though
the sum paid by the Chapter in accordance with their agreement
was only £1500. The same firm, the Skidmore Art
Company, who made it, also supplied the large corona and
gasfittings.

A brass eagle presented by the Misses Rushort to the
Cathedral, is placed near the south-west corner of the screen;
it was designed by Cottingham.

The Central Tower.—Immediately above the four great
arches of the central tower, the interior walls are, says Professor
Willis in his report on the Cathedral, “Of a very singular
construction; twelve piers of compact masonry on each
side, beside angle piers, are carried up to the height of 26 ft.,
and connected half-way up by a horizontal course of stone, in
long pieces, and by an iron bar, which runs all round immediately
under this bonding course. Upon these gigantic stone
gratings, if I may be allowed the expression, the interior wall
of the tower rests, and they also carry the entire weight of the
bell-chamber and bells.

The whole space is now completely open from the floor of
the Cathedral to the wooden floor of the bell-chamber, which
is painted underneath in blue and gold. From this floor hangs,
the handsome corona of wrought iron.

Before Mr. Cottingham’s restoration was commenced in 1843,
however, the whole appearance of the central tower was
different, and the beautiful lantern with its many shafts was
hidden from view by a vault of the fifteenth century, which rose
above the great arches and completely concealed the upper
portion of the tower.

In his specific report of the condition of the central tower
in particular, which he was instructed to deliver in writing, Mr.
Cottingham said:

“To enable me to form the opinion which I have now the
honour of reporting, I have carefully examined the construction
of the four great piers which support the tower; they are of
Norman workmanship, and sufficient in bulk to carry a much
greater weight than the present tower, had the masonry been[pg 042]
more carefully constructed; they consist of a series of semi-circular
columns attached to a thin ashlar casing, which surrounds
the piers, and the chambers or cavities within are filled
with a rubble core, composed of broken stones, loam and lime
grouting; this was undoubtedly sufficient to carry a low Norman
tower, but when the great Early English shaft was added
on the top of this work the pressure became too great for such
kind of masonry to bear. The ashlar and semi-columns, not
being well bonded and deeply headed into the rubble cores,
split and bulged, and the cores, for want of a proper proportion
of lime, diminished and crushed to pieces. To remedy these
defects, a second facing of ashlar has been attached to the piers,
in some places by cutting out a part of the old ashlar, and in
others by merely fixing long slips of stone round the pier with
iron plugs, run in with lead,—these most unsightly excrescences
have destroyed the beauty of the original design, without adding
any strength to the masonry. The same unskilful hands blocked
up all the original Norman arches, except one, connected with
the tower piers and communicating with the aisles, choir, and
transepts, leaving only a small passage-way in each.

“The first triforium arches in the choir and east side of the
south transept, abutting against the tower, have also been closed
up with masonry, so as to leave scarcely a trace of the rich
work which lies concealed behind it. These injudicious performances
have tended to weaken instead of strengthen the
tower. The interior walls above the main arches of the tower,
up to the bases of the fifty-two pillars, which surround the bellringers’
chamber, are in a very ruinous state, particularly at the
four angles, where rude cavities, running in a diagonal direction,
have been made large enough for a man to creep in,—these
unaccountable holes have tended very much to increase the
danger, as all the masonry connected with them is drawn off
its bond, and many of the stones shivered to pieces by the
enormous pressure above. The stone-work, also, above the
pillars, is drawn off at the angles just below the timber-work of
the bell floor. On the whole, I never witnessed a more awful
monument of the fallibility of human skill than the tower of
Hereford Cathedral at this moment presents.”

In addition to the report of the architect the Chapter availed
themselves, on recommendation of the Bishop, of the opinion
of Professor Willis, of Cambridge. This gentleman, after the[pg 043]
most minute scrutiny and indefatigable labour, produced his
elaborate and well-known report. He essentially corroborated
the architect, especially as to the general state of the tower; and,
under the strenuous exertions of Dean Merewether, the great
work of restoration was commenced. The tower contains a
fine peal of ten bells in the key of C. A new clock was erected
in 1861, which strikes the
hours and quarter-hours.

The North Transept.—Passing
through the
north arch of the tower we
come into some of the
most interesting parts of
the Cathedral. The transept
beyond was entirely
rebuilt for the reception of
the shrine of Bishop Cantilupe,
when his body was
removed from the Lady
Chapel in 1287, after the
miracles reported at his
tomb had already largely
increased the revenues of
the Cathedral. The unusual
shape of the arches
and the fine and effective
windows of this transept
render it one of the most
distinguished English specimens
of the style.

NORTH ARCH OF CENTRAL TOWER, SHOWING MASONRY ERECTED ABOUT 1320.

On the north is a window
with triple lights on each
side of a group of banded
shafts, the tracery above
being formed of circles enclosing trefoils. The heads of the
lights are sharply pointed.

The west side has two lofty windows recessed inside
triangular-headed arches, which completely fill the two bays.
They have three lights each, and are exactly similar to the
windows on the north side of the transept.

Surrounded by alternate shafts of sandstone and dark[pg 044]
marble, a clustered pier divides the eastern aisle of the
transept into two bays. These shafts have foliated capitals,
and the bases have knots of foliage between them.

With the exception of one string of dog-tooth ornament the
mouldings of the main arches are plain.

Above is the interesting triforium stretching across the
Norman arch opening to the choir-aisle beyond the transept
itself. There are in each bay two pointed arches, each containing
three smaller arches with foiled headings surmounted
by three open quatrefoils. The spandrels between the arches
are diapered in low relief with leaf ornament. Above, far back
in the clerestory arches, are octofoil windows with sills of over-lapping
courses, which incline forward to the string course above
the triforium.

The shafts of all the windows are ringed at the angles, and
the triangular arches are of an unusual stilted shape, similar
to those in the clerestory of Worcester Cathedral on the south
side of the nave. These are, however, of later date, and may
have been imitated by the Worcester architect.

The restoration of the north transept by Sir G. G. Scott was
satisfactorily carried out, and certainly improves the general
effect.

Monuments in the North Transept.—The great north
stained-glass window by Hardman was placed there as a
memorial to Archdeacon Lane-Freer who died in 1863.
Underneath this window, which is described later on in the
section devoted to stained glass, is the stone effigy of Bishop
Westfayling (died 1602). The canopy was removed by Wyatt,
and the effigy is now leaning on its side against the wall.
There is an undoubted original half-length portrait of this
bishop in the Hall of Jesus College, Oxford. There are
monuments to other members of the family in the church at
Ross.

In the pavement near the choir-aisle is a brass to John
Philips, the author of The Splendid Shilling and of Cyder, a
poem endearing him to Herefordshire. His family belonged
to this county, although he himself was born in Oxfordshire.
There is also a monument to Philips in Poets’ Corner, Westminster
Abbey. He died in 1708, at the early age of 32.

THE NORTH TRANSEPT.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

The next monument in the north transept is the effigy of
Bishop Thomas Charlton, treasurer of England, 1329. This[pg 047]
effigy and its richly decorated alcove or canopy was most
luckily not touched by Wyatt.

Here are stained-glass windows to Captain Arkwright, lost
in an avalanche; Captain Kempson, and Rev. S. Clark, Headmaster
of Battersea College.

In a line with the central pier of the eastern aisle is the most
important monument in the north transept, viz.:—the pedestal
of the celebrated shrine of St. Thomas de Cantilupe, 1282,
who died at Civita Vecchia, near Florence, on his way to
Rome, August 25th, 1282. His heart was sent to Ashridge
in Buckinghamshire, part of the body was buried near Orvieto;
and the bones were brought to Hereford and deposited in the
Lady Chapel.

The pedestal is in shape a long parallelogram, narrower at
the lower end. It is of Purbeck marble, and consists of two
stages, the lower having a series of cinquefoiled niches and
fourteen figures of Templars in chain armour in different
attitudes, for Bishop Cantilupe was Provincial Grand Master of
the Knights Templars in England.

All the figures are seated with various monsters under their
feet. The filling of the spandrels between these niches and
that of the spandrels between the arches of the upper stage is
especially noteworthy. It belongs to the first Decorated period,
and while the arrangement is still somewhat stiff or formal, the
forms are evidently directly copied from nature.

The slab inside the open arcade, which forms the upper stage,
still bears the matrix of the brass of an episcopal figure having
traces of the arms of the See (i.e., the arms of Cantilupe).

By the dedication of the north transept especially to Bishop
Cantilupe was avoided the secondary part which his shrine must
have played if it had been placed in the usual post of honour
at the back of the high altar. The shrine of St. Ethelbert was
probably already there, and wisely enough a distinguished
position was specially created by rebuilding the north transept
for the purpose. There is a similar state of affairs at Oxford
Cathedral with the shrine of St. Frideswide, and in the south
transept of Chichester Cathedral with that of St. Richard de la
Wych.

We note also a brass to Dean Frowcester, 1529; and
another to Richard Delamare and his wife Isabella (1435).

Near the Cantilupe shrine is a bust of Bishop Field (died[pg 048]
1636), and on the floor is an effigy of John D’Acquablanca,
a Dean of Hereford (died 1320), and nephew of Bishop
D’Acquablanca, whose beautiful monument is close to it,
between the north choir-aisle and the eastern aisle of the
transept. Beholding the exquisite grace of this tomb we are
reminded of the more elaborate and equally beautiful chantry
of the same period (1262) in the south choir transept of Salisbury
to Bishop Giles de Bridport.

Over the effigy, which is a most interesting example of
minute ecclesiastical costume, delicate shafts of Purbeck
marble support a gabled canopy, each gable of which is surmounted
by a finial in the form of a floriated cross.

This monument once glowed with rich colour, and in 1861
a feeble attempt was made to restore it, which was, however,
not carried out. Bishop Aquablanca, Peter of Savoy, had
been steward of the household to his relative, William of Savoy,
the Queen’s uncle. His preferment was one of the noteworthy
instances of Henry III.’s love of foreigners, and as Bishop of
Hereford he was especially unpopular. The King made him
his treasurer and consulted him on all matters of state. At his
death, says the Rev. H. W. Phillott,2 “He was probably little
regretted in his cathedral city, whose citizens he had defeated
in an attempt to encroach on his episcopal rights. But he
used his victory with moderation, for he forgave them one half
of their fine and devoted the other half to the fabric of the
cathedral, probably that noble and graceful portion of it, the
north-west transept, which contains the exquisitely beautiful
shrine, probably erected by himself, under which repose the
remains of his nephew, John, Dean of Hereford, as well as
his own, his heart excepted, which, with a pathetic yearning
of home-sickness, he desired should be carried to the church
which he had founded in his own sunny land at Aigue-Belle,
in Savoy. Yet, though his memory has received no mercy at
the hands of historians and song-writers of his day, though his
example did much to swell the tide of ill-repute in which
many of the clergy of all ranks were held (for the laity, says
the song-writer, are apt to pay less attention to the doctrine
than to the life of their teachers), we ought not to leave out of
sight that he did much to improve the fabric of the Cathedral,
and bequeathed liberal gifts to its foundation in money, books,[pg 051]
ornaments, and land, and also a handsome legacy to the poor
of the diocese.”

THE CANTILUPE SHRINE.

In the north transept is a doorway leading to the tower.

South Transept.—Crossing the Cathedral in front of the
Skidmore screen it is a relief to turn from the nave with its
sham triforium to the south transept with its fine three stage
Norman east side. The groining, although incongruous, is still
beautiful, and does not irritate in the same way as Wyatt’s
abominations in the nave. This transept contains several
disputed architectural points, and opinions are divided as to
whether it may not be the oldest existing portion of the
Cathedral. “At any rate,” says G. Phillips Bevan,3 “this
transept seems to have been the happy hunting-ground of
successive races of builders, who have left the side-walls in
admired confusion.”

Though it underwent great alteration in the Perpendicular
period much of the Norman work remains. The east wall is
in the best preservation, and is certainly entirely Norman with
the exception of the groining. It is covered with five series of
arcades, which may be divided into three stages. In the
middle stage is a notably good triforium passage of very short
Norman arches. All the other ranges of arcades, except those
at the level of the clerestory, are blocked. On this side the
transept is lighted from the clerestory by two Norman
windows.

In both east and west walls there is a very fine Norman
moulded double arch.

In the west wall Perpendicular windows have cut into the
Norman work, and a large Perpendicular window nearly fills
the south wall with panelling round it of the same period.

Monuments in the South Transept.—There is an
interesting altar-tomb of Sir Alexander Denton, 1576, of
Hillesden, Co. Bucks, Esq., and his lady and a child in
swaddling clothes, toward the south-east angle of the transept.
The effigies are in alabaster, and retain considerable traces of
colour. They are in full proportion, and the knight wears a
double chain and holds a cross in his hands. The Dentons
were ancestors of the Coke family, now Earls of Leicester.
The swaddled body of the child lies to the left of its mother,[pg 052]
its head resting on a little double pillow by her knee, and a
part of the red cloth on which she lies wraps over the lower
part of the babe.

To the right of the knight, balancing the child in the
composition, lie his two gauntlets or mail gloves, which have
been much scratched with names.

The head of the knight rests upon his helmet.

Round the verge of the tomb is this inscription:

“But,” says Browne Willis, “this was but a cænotaph, for
Alexander Denton, the husband, who lived some years after,
and marry’d another lady, was bury’d with her at Hillesden,
Co. Bucks; where he died January the 18th, 1576.”

Under the south window is an effigy of Bishop Trevenant
(1389-1404), the builder of the Perpendicular alterations
in this transept. The effigy is unfortunately headless and has
lost its hands. The feet are resting on a lion.

There is a brass to T. Smith, organist of the Cathedral
(1877).

The remains of an ancient fireplace may be noticed on the
west side of the south transept.

They consist of a rectangular recess with chimney vault
behind. This was doubtless cut away when the Perpendicular
window was placed above on this side.

From this transept a beautiful side view is obtained of the
lantern arches.

EAST WALL OF THE SOUTH TRANSEPT.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

The Organ, which occupies the first archway on the south
side of the choir, contains work by Renatus Harris. Mr.
Phillips Bevan4 writes of it, “It was the gift of Charles II.,
and was very nearly destroyed by the fall of the central tower.
It has twice been enlarged since, once by Gray and Davidson,
and lastly by Willis. It has 16 great organ stops, 11
swell, 7 choir, 7 solo, 8 pedals, with 2672 pipes. A great
feature in Willis’s improvements is the tubular pneumatic[pg 055]
action, which does away with trackers and other troublesome
internals. Sir F. Gore Ouseley having been precentor of the
Cathedral, it goes without saying that he made everything
about the organ as nearly perfect as possible, and, for the
matter of that, no lover of music should omit to hear the
Unaccompanied service usually held on Friday morning.”

In the south wall of the south choir-aisle are four Decorated
arched recesses containing four effigies of bishops, belonging to
the Perpendicular period. These effigies have been attributed,
beginning from the west, to R. de Melun, 1167; Robert De
Bethune (died 1148), the last Norman builder; Hugh Foliot
(died 1234) or Robert Foliot (died 1186); and William De
Vere (died 1199).

On the north wall under an arch opening to the choir is the
tomb of Bishop De Lorraine or Losinga (died 1095), who
superintended the building of the fine west front of the
cathedral so unfortunately destroyed. This effigy also belongs
to the Perpendicular period. The large size of the ball flower
and fine wood-carving of the Decorated period on these tombs
is noticeable.

Between the two eastern piers of the choir is the fine effigy
and brass to Bishop Mayhew, of Magdalen College (1504-1516).
The effigy is wearing a mitre, and is fully vested. In
front of the monument are panels filled with figures of saints,
and over the effigy is an elaborate canopy, which has been
restored.

In the last bay to west of the south choir aisle a door gives
access to two Norman rooms, used as vestries or robing rooms,
to enter which you pass beneath the bellows of the organ.
Exhibited in cases in one of these rooms are some of the
treasures of the cathedral, ancient copies of the Scriptures,
chalices, rings, etc., described in detail towards the close of
this section. A two-storied eastern chamber was added to the
Norman work in the Perpendicular period, and was used as
the cathedral treasury.

Before leaving the south choir aisle the old stained glass
windows with figures restored by Warrington should be noticed,
and the celebrated Map of the World is well worth some
study. It was discovered under the floor of Bishop Audley’s
Chapel during the last century, and appears from internal
evidence to have been probably designed about 1314 by a[pg 056]
certain Richard of Haldingham and of Lafford (Holdingham
and Sleaford in Lincolnshire).

Prebendary Havergal says: “It is believed to be one of the
very oldest maps in the world, if not the oldest, and it is full
of the deepest interest. It is founded on the cosmographical
treatises of the time, which generally commence by stating that
Augustus Cæsar sent out three philosophers, Nichodoxus,
Theodotus, and Polictitus, to measure and survey the world,
and that all geographical knowledge was the result. In the
left-hand corner of the map the Emperor is delivering to the
philosophers written orders, confirmed by a handsome mediæval
seal. The world is here represented as round, surrounded
by the ocean. At the top of the map is represented Paradise,
with its rivers and trees; also the eating of the forbidden fruit
and the expulsion of our first parents. Above is a remarkable
representation of the Day of Judgment, with the Virgin Mary
interceding for the faithful, who are seen rising from their
graves and being led within the walls of heaven.

“The map is chiefly filled with ideas taken from Herodotus,
Solinus, Isidore, Pliny, and other ancient historians. There
are numerous figures of towns, animals, birds, and fish, with
grotesque customs, such as the mediæval geographers believed
to exist in different parts of the world; Babylon with its famous
tower; Rome, the capital of the world, bearing the inscription—‘Roma,
caput mundi, tenet orbis frena rotundi’; and Troy as
‘civitas bellicosissima.’ In Great Britain most of the cathedrals
are mentioned; but of Ireland the author seems to have known
very little.

“Amongst the many points of interest are the columns of
Hercules, the Labyrinth of Crete, the pyramids in Egypt, the
house of bondage, the journeys of the Children of Israel, the
Red Sea, Mount Sinai, with a figure of Moses and his supposed
place of burial, the Phœnician Jews worshipping the molten
image, Lot’s wife,” etc.

Bishop’s Cloisters.—At the eastern end of the south[pg 057]
nave aisle a door opens to the cloisters connecting the cathedral
with the episcopal palace. In the cloister is placed a monument
and inscription to Colonel John Matthews of Belmont,
near Hereford, who died 1826. The subject, “Grief consoled
by an Angel,” is carved in Caen stone.

Other monuments are:—one to the Hon. Edward Grey, D.D.,
formerly Bishop of Hereford, 1832 to 1837. He died July
1837, and is buried beneath the bishop’s throne. A monument
to Bishop George Isaac Huntingford, D.D., 1815 to 1832.
He died in his eighty-fourth year, April 1832, and was buried
at Compton, near Winchester. Also a monument to Dr. Clarke
Whitfield, an organist of the cathedral.

The following inscription, on an ancient brass, affixed to a
gravestone near the west part of the cathedral, which, being
taken off, was kept in the city tolsey or hall for some time
until it was finally fastened to a freestone on the west side of
the Bishop’s Cloisters:—

The South-east Transept, lying between the retro-choir
and the chapter-house, into which it opens, is in the main
Decorated, though its window tracery is perhaps somewhat
later, being almost flamboyant in character. It was altered
from the original Norman apse, and in the walls bases of the[pg 058]
earlier work remain. It has an eastern aisle, separated from it
by a single octagonal pillar.

Before the aisles were added the now open window looking
into the Lady Chapel formed part of the outside wall of the
chapel, and was glazed. There is a lovely view from this
transept, looking slantwise into the Lady Chapel. In this
transept are a number of fragments of brasses, mouldings,
stone, etc. The chief monument is that to Bishop Lewis
Charleton, 1369. His effigy lies under the wall dividing
the transept from the vestibule of the Lady Chapel. Above it
is a fine monument, restored in 1875, to Bishop Coke, died
1646. This bishop was brother to Sir John Coke, Secretary of
State to Charles I. His coloured shield is borne by two angels.

A black marble slab, in excellent preservation, marks the
spot where the remains of Bishop Ironside were laid on
Christmas Eve, 1867, in presence of the dean, archdeacon,
and praecentor, in a vault specially prepared for them; and
there is a small brass on the wall. Gilbert Ironside, D.D.,
Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, was Vice-Chancellor of
the University in 1687, when James II. seized upon the
venerable foundation of Magdalen College and sent his commissioners
to Oxford to expel the Fellows.

In his replies to the king, Dr. Ironside showed a firm and
resolute spirit in defence of the rights of Oxford. His refusal
to dine with the commissioners on the day of the Magdalen
expulsion is described thus by Macaulay:—”I am not,” he
said, “of Colonel Kerke’s mind. I cannot eat my meals with
appetite under a gallows.”

The brave old Warden of Wadham was not left to “eat his
meals” much longer in his beautiful college hall. William
III., almost immediately after his accession, made him Bishop
of Bristol, whence he was translated to Hereford, and, dying
in 1701 at the London residence of the Bishops of Hereford,
in the parish of St. Mary Somerset, was buried in that church.

It was at the instigation of the Warden and Fellows of
Wadham College that the Dean and Chapter of Hereford consented
to the proposal that the remains and marble slab should
be removed to the precincts of their cathedral.

St. Mary Somerset, Thames Street, was the first church
closed under the Bishop of London’s Union of Benefices Act,
and when it was dismantled and the dead removed from their[pg 059]
vaults in the autumn of 1867, the remains of Bishop Ironside
were found encased in lead only, all the outer coffins in the
vault having been previously removed or stolen.

For the purpose of identification the lead coffin was opened
by the Burial Board authorities, “and,” says Mr. Havergal,
“so perfect were the remains that the skin was not broken,
and the features of the placid-looking bishop were undisturbed.”
In a square recess on the east wall is a bust
which has been taken by various critics to be Hogarth, Cowper,
Garrick, and others, but is in reality a portrait of a Mr.
James Thomas, a citizen of Hereford, who is buried near this
place. Under it is a brass to Sir Richard Delabere, 1514,
his two wives and twenty-one children; the inscription is as
follows:—

“Of your Charitie pray for the Soul of Sir Richard Delabere,
Knight, late of the Countie of Hereford; Anne, daughter of the
Lord Audley, and Elizabeth, daughter of William Mores, late
sergeant of the hall to King Henry VII., wyves of the said Sir
Richard, whyche decessed the 20th day of July, A.D. 1513, on
whose souls Jesu have mercye. Amen.”

The north-east window contains stained glass to the memory
of Bishop Huntingford. There is also an old effigy supposed
to represent St. John the Baptist.

The Lady Chapel.—The elaborate and beautiful Early
English work of this chapel, which dates from the first half of
the thirteenth century, about 1220, was twice under the
restorers’ hands, the eastern end and roof having been rebuilt
by Cottingham and the porch and Audley Chapel by Sir G. G.
Scott. It is 24 by 45 feet in extent and has three bays. On
the north side each of these bays contains two large windows,
and on the south side two of the bays contain each two windows,
while the third is filled by the Audley Chapel.

In 1841 the eastern gable of the chapel was stated by
Professor Willis to be in a parlous state, and the rebuilding of
this portion was one of the first works undertaken by Mr.
Cottingham. Sir G. G. Scott completed the pavement and
other restorations.

The glorious east window consists of five narrow lancets
recessed within arches supported by clustered shafts, the wall
above being perforated with five quatrefoil openings, of which
the outside ones are circular and the centre three are oval.

[pg 060]

Fergusson5 remarks: “Nowhere on the Continent are such
combinations to be found as the Five Sisters at York, the east
end of Ely, or such a group as that which terminates the east
end of Hereford.”

Of the beauties and interesting features which were developed
by the clearing of the Lady Chapel by Mr. Cottingham, Dean
Merewether wrote:—

THE LADY CHAPEL.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

“Its symmetrical proportions, before completely spoilt; the
remnants of its ancient painting, which were traceable beneath
the whitewash; the fair disclosure of the monuments of Joanna
de Kilpec, a benefactress to this very edifice, and Humphry
de Bohun, her husband, both of exceeding interest; the
discovery of two aumbries, both walled up, but one with the
stones composing it reversed; the double piscina on the south
side, the chapel of Bishop Audley; but especially two of the
most beautiful specimens of transition arches which can be
found in any edifice, bearing the Early English form, the shafts
and capitals and the lancet-shaped arch above, but ornamented[pg 061]
in their soffits with the Norman moulding, and the zig-zag decoration,
corresponding with the remarkable union of the Norman
intersecting arches on the exterior of the building, with
its pointed characteristics. The appearance of the central
column with a base in the Early English and its capital with
the Norman ornament might be added: the stairs to the
crypt, and the discovery of several most interesting relics in[pg 062]
the adjoining vaults opened in reducing the floor to its original
level.”

SECTION THROUGH LADY CHAPEL AND CRYPT.

ARCH DISCOVERED AT ENTRANCE OF LADY CHAPEL.

It was as a memorial to Dean Merewether, to whom the
cathedral owes so much,
that the stained glass
designed by Cottingham
was placed in the
east windows in the
narrow lancets that he
loved so dearly. It represents
scenes in the
early life of the Virgin
and the life of Christ;
the last being the supper
in the house of
Mary and Martha. In
the side windows the
visitor should especially
notice the rich clustered
shafts and arches, the
Early English capitals,
and the ornamentation
of the arches. Above
these windows, corresponding
to the openings
above the east
window, a quatrefoil
opening enclosed by a
circle pierces the wall.
The quadripartite vaulting
springs from slender
shafts, which descend
upon a slightly raised
base.

The double piscina
and aumbry south of
the altar are restorations
necessitated by the dilapidated state of the originals.

Monuments in the Lady Chapel.—Of great beauty and
interest is the Perpendicular recess in the central bay on the
north side of the Lady Chapel, in which is the recumbent[pg 063]
effigy which tradition has assigned without evidence to
Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, who died in the 46th
year of the reign of Edward III., 1372. He was, however,
buried in the north side of the Presbytery in Walden Abbey,
Essex.

The Rev. Francis Havergal considers this to be the monument
of Peter, Baron de Grandisson, who died 1358. In any
case, the knight was probably one of the Bohun family, and
husband of the lady whose effigy lies under an arch in the wall
adjoining. The costume is of the earlier part of the fourteenth
century; full armour, and covered (a rare example) by a cyclass,
a close linen shirt worn over the armour in Edward III.’s reign.
This shirt is cut short in front and about 6 inches longer
behind. The visitor should also notice the fringed poleyns at
the knees.

The upper story of the recess itself has open tabernacle-work,
now containing a series of figures representing the crowning of
the Virgin; on one side are figures of King Ethelbert and St.
John the Baptist, and on the other St. Thomas à Becket (with
double crozier) and Bishop Thomas de Cantilupe. Of these,
however, only the two central carvings are in their original
positions, the others having been discovered by Mr. Cottingham
when the oak choir-screen was removed.

In the easternmost bay on this side is the tomb of
Joanna de Bohun, Countess of Hereford, 1327. To quote
from Dean Merewether: “The effigy of the lady, there can
be scarcely a doubt, represents ‘Johanna de Bohun, Domina
de Kilpec.’ She was the sister and heiress of Alan Plonknett
or Plugenet of Kilpec, in the county of Hereford, a name
distinguished in the annals of his times; and of his possessions,
his sister doing her homage, had livery 19 Edward II.

“In 1327 Johanna de Bohun gave to the Dean and Chapter
of Hereford, the church of Lugwardyne, with the chapels of
Llangarren, St. Waynards and Henthland, with all the small
chapels belonging to them, which donation was confirmed by
the king by the procurement and diligence of Thomas de
Chandos, Archdeacon of Hereford; and the Bishop of Hereford
further confirmed it to the Dean and Chapter by deed,
dated Lugwas, 22nd July, 1331 (ex Regist. MS. Thomæ
Chorleton, Epi.): And afterwards the Bishop, Dean and
Chapter appropriated the revenues of it to the service peculiar[pg 064]
to the Virgin Mary, ‘because in other churches in England
the Mother of God had better and more serious service, but
in the Church of Hereford the Ladye’s sustenance for her
prieste was so thinne and small, that out of their respect they
add this, by their deeds, dated in the Chapter at Hereford,
April 10th, 1333.’ (Harl. MS. 6726, fol. 109.)

“Johanna de Bohoun died without issue, 1 Edward III.,
1327, the donation of Lugwardyne being perhaps her dying
bequest. On the 17th of October in that year, she constituted
John de Badesshawe, her attorney, to give possession to the
Dean and Chapter of an acre of land in Lugwardine, and the
advowson of the church with the chapels pertaining to it.
This instrument was dated at Bisseleye, and her seal was
appended, of which a sketch is preserved
by Taylor, in whose possession
this document appears to have been in
1655, and a transcript of it will be
found Harl. MS. 6868, f. 77 (see also
6726, f. 109, which last has been
printed in Shaw’s Topographer, 1.
280).

“In the tower is preserved the patent
1 Edward III., pro Ecclesia de Lugwarden
cum capellis donandis a
Johanna de Bohun ad inveniendum 8
capellanos et 2 diaconos approprianda
(Tanner’s Notitia Monast.).

SEAL OF JOHANNA DE BOHUN.

“The circumstances above mentioned appear sufficiently to
explain why the memorial of Johanna de Bohoun is found in
the Lady Chapel, to which especially she had been a benefactress.
They also explain the original ornaments of this
tomb, the painting which was to be seen not many years since
under the arch in which the effigy lies, now unfortunately
concealed by a coat of plaster, of which sufficient has been
removed to prove that Gough’s description of the original state
of the painting is correct. He says, ‘The Virgin is represented
sitting, crowned with a nimbus; a lady habited in a mantle and
wimple kneeling on an embroidered cushion offers to her a
church built in the form of a cross, with a central spire—and
behind the lady kneel eleven or twelve religious, chanting à
gorge deployée after the foremost, who holds up a book, on[pg 065]
which are seen musical notes and “salve sca parens.” Fleur-de-lys
are painted about both within and without this arch,
and on the spandrils two shields; on the left, a bend cotised
between twelve Lioncels (Bohun); and on the right, Ermines,
a bend indented, Gules.’ This description was published 1786.

“By this painting there can be no doubt that the donation
of the church of Lugwardine was represented; the eleven or
twelve vociferous choristers were the eight chaplains and two
deacons mentioned in the patent, who were set apart for the
peculiar service of the Lady Chapel, and provided for from
the pious bequest of Johanna de Bohoun. The two shields
mentioned by Gough are still discernible, that on the dexter
side bearing the arms of Bohun, Azure a bend, Argent between
two cotises, and six lions rampant, or.—The other, Ermines,
a bend indented, (or fusily) Gules, which were the bearings of
Plugenet, derived perhaps originally from the earlier Barons of
Kilpec, and still borne by the family of Pye in Herefordshire,
whose descent is traced to the same source. In the list of
obits observed in Hereford Cathedral, Johanna is called the
Lady Kilpeck, and out of Lugwardine was paid yearly for her
obit forty pence.”

The effigy of Joanna de Bohun is also valuable as a specimen
of costume. Its curious decoration of human heads is
also noteworthy.

Over the grave of Dean Merewether, who is interred at the
north-east angle of the chapel, is a black marble slab with
a brass by Hardman bearing an inscription, which records
that to the restoration of the cathedral “he devoted the unwearied
energies of his life till its close on the 4th of April
1850.”

The next monument to notice is the effigy of Dean Berew
or Beaurieu (died 1462) in the south wall of the vestibule.
This is one of the best specimens of monumental sculpture
in the cathedral. The face, which is well modelled, and
the arrangement of the drapery at the feet, are especially
noticeable. There are remains of colour over the whole
monument. In the hollow of the arch-moulding are sixteen
boars with rue leaves in their mouths, forming a “rebus” of
the dean’s name.

To the west of this monument is the effigy of a priest,
supposed to be Canon de la Barr, 1386.

[pg 066]

The Audley Chantry.—In the central bay on the south
side of the wall is the Audley Chantry—a beautiful little
chapel built by Bishop Edmund Audley (1492-1502), with an
upper chamber to which access is obtained by a circular staircase
at the south-west angle.

After Bishop Audley’s translation to Salisbury in 1502
he erected a similar chantry in that cathedral wherein he
was buried, so that the object of the Hereford Chantry
as the place for his interment was of course never
fulfilled.

The following is an extract taken from the calendar of an
ancient missal:—”Secundum usum Herefordensem,” which
notes a number of “obiits” or commemorations of benefactors,
chiefly between the times of Henry I. and Edward II.
“X. Kal. Obitus Domini Edmundi Audeley, quondam Sarum
Episcopi, qui dedit redditum XX. Solidorum distribuendorum
Canonicis et Clericis in anniversario suo presentibus, quique
capellam novam juxta Feretrum Sancti Thomae Confessoris e
fundo construxit, et in eadem Cantariam perpetuam amortizavit,
etc. Constituit necnon Feretrum argenteum in modum Ecclesiae
fabricatum atque alia quam plurima huic Sacre Edi contulit
beneficia.“

The lower chamber is shut off from the Lady Chapel by a
screen of painted stone with open-work panelling in two stages.
The chapel is a pentagon in plan, and has two windows, while
a third opens into the Lady Chapel through the screen.
The ceiling is vaulted, and bears evidences of having in former
times been elaborately painted.

There are five windows in the upper chamber, and the
groined roof is distinctly good. The boss in the centre
represents the Virgin crowned in glory. On other parts of
the ceiling are the arms of Bishop Audley and those of the
Deanery as well as a shield bearing the letters R.I. The
upper part of the chantry, which is divided from the Lady
Chapel by the top of the screen which serves as a kind of rail,
may have been used as an oratory; but no remains of an altar
have been found. On the door opening on the staircase is
some good iron-work, and Bishop Audley’s initials may be
noticed on the lock.

Standing by the door of this chapel the visitor has a lovely
view westward, two pillars rising in the roof and across the[pg 067]
top of the reredos, to the right the Norman arches of the north
transept, and further on still the nave.

The Lady Chapel was used for very many years as a library,
and after 1862 as the church of the parish of St. John the
Baptist, which surrounds the cathedral, and claimed to hold
its service in some part of the building.

The Crypt is entered from the south side of the Lady
Chapel where a porch opens to a staircase leading down.
The porch is deeply in-set, and like the crypt itself and the
Lady Chapel, Early English. Professor Willis points out
that Hereford is the only English cathedral whose crypt is
later in date than the eleventh century; the well-known
examples at Canterbury, Rochester, Worcester, Winchester,
and Gloucester all belonging to earlier times. A flight of
twenty steps leads down to the crypt, which is now light and
dry, although previous to Dean Merewether’s excavations it was
utterly neglected and nearly choked up with rubbish. There
is another approach to it from the interior of the church.

THE CRYPT.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

[pg 068]

It is 50 feet in length, and consists of a nave and aisles
marked out by undecorated columns. It runs beneath the
whole extent of the Lady Chapel.

This crypt having been used as a charnel-house is called the
“Golgotha.” In the centre is an altar tomb, upon which is a
large and elaborately decorated alabaster slab, in a fair state of
preservation. It bears an incised representation of Andrew
Jones, a Hereford merchant, and his wife, with an inscription
setting forth how he repaired the crypt in 1497. Scrolls proceeding
from the mouths of the figures bear the following lines:—

At the back of the reredos is a brass to Mr. Bailey, M.P.
for the county, whose bust formerly stood here, but was
removed to a more fitting position in the county hall.

The Vicars’ Cloisters.—The entrance to the college of
Vicars Choral is from the south side of the Lady Chapel.
Leading from the south-east transept of the cathedral to the
quadrangle of the college is a long cloister walk.

In the morning, when the sun shines upon the cloister, its
richly carved roof may be best seen. The western wall, with
the exception of a few mortuary tablets, is quite plain. The
eastern wall is pierced with eight three-light windows, between
which are the remains of small niches.

Many old vicars are buried within this cloister. The roof is
of oak, the wall-plates, purlins, and rafters are richly moulded
and the tie-beams and principals are richly carved on both
sides with various patterns and devices.

The Rev. F. Havergal says:—”The late William Cooke
acquired an immense amount of information relating to the
college and the vicars in olden time. His biographical notices
of them are most curious and amusing, giving a complete
insight into the manners, traditions, and customs of the place.”
He goes on to quote from the Lansdowne Manuscript in the
British Museum, 213, p. 333.

“Relation of a survey of twenty-six counties in 1634, by a
captain, a lieutenant, and an ancient, all three of the military
company in Norwich.

[pg 069]

“Next came wee into a brave and ancient priviledg’d Place,
through the Lady Arbour Cloyster, close by the Chapter-house,
called the Vicars Chorall or Colledge Cloyster, where twelve
of the singing men, all in orders, most of them Masters in Arts,
of a Gentile garbe, have their convenient several dwellings, and
a fayre Hall, with richly painted windows, colledge like, wherein
they constantly dyet together, and have their cooke, butler,
and other officers, with a fayre library to themselves, consisting
all of English books, wherein (after we had freely tasted of
their chorall cordiall liquor) we spent our time till the Bell
toll’d us away to Cathedral prayers. There we heard a most
sweet Organ, and voyces of all parts, Tenor, Counter-Tenor,
Treble, and Base; and amongst that orderly shewy crew of
Queristers our landlord guide did act his part in a deep and
sweet Diapason.”

The North-East Transept.—This transept shows ample
evidence of the original Norman plan, although its present
character is Early Decorated.

Of the triple apse in which the Norman Cathedral probably
terminated—an arrangement similar to the eastern apses of
Gloucester and Norwich Cathedrals—portions remain in the
walls of the vestibule to the Lady Chapel, and in this, the
north-east transept, still remain parts of the apses which opened
from the choir aisles. These are somewhat later than the nave
and belong to the Transition period.

After the completion of the great north transept for the
reception of the shrine of St. Thomas Cantilupe, the terminal
apses of the choir aisles were almost entirely removed, and the
present north-east transept erected.

In the centre of this transept rises an octagonal pier which
helps to carry the quadripartite vaulting. Some Norman arches
in the west wall doubtless formed part of the original apse.
The windows belong to the Early Decorated period. Sir G. G.
Scott was responsible for the restoration of the transept.

Monuments in the North-East Transept.—Under
the north-west window is the canopied tomb of Bishop
Swinfield. The effigy of the bishop has been lost, and in its
place, which is now shown, is an unknown figure which was
found buried in the cloisters. In the mouldings of the arched
canopy the ball-flower ornament is again in evidence, and
behind the tomb a carving of the crucifixion is still visible,[pg 070]
though nearly obliterated by the chisel of the Puritans. The
beautiful vine leaf carving at the sides has, however, been
happily spared; it is similar to the leafage on the Cantilupe
shrine.

The altar-tomb of Dean Dawes, 1867, one of the most active
of the modern restorers, is very beautiful. It is by Sir G. G.
Scott, with effigy by Noble.

Under the north-east window is an altar-tomb of an unknown
bishop. It has been assigned to Bishop Godwen, 1633, but
is probably much earlier.

There is also an old stained glass window, restored by
Warrington, with figures of SS. Catherine, Gregory, Michael,
Thomas, and a modern one, by Heaton, to the Rev. J. Goss.

In the north choir aisle, which is entered through the
original Norman arch, is an exquisite little chapel known as
Bishop Stanbury’s Chantry. In style it is late Perpendicular
(1470). The roof is a good specimen of fan-vaulting, and the
walls are panelled with heraldic bearings. Its dimensions are
8 feet by 16 feet, and it is lighted by two windows on the
north side, the entrance being on the south.

At the east end are shields with emblems over the place of
the altar, and the west is covered with shields in panels and
tracery.

The capitals of the shafts at the angles are formed by
grotesques, and over the arch on the south side are shields
with emblems of St. Matthias, St. Thomas, and St. Bartholomew.
The Lancaster rose is prominent in the decoration, and there
is much under-cutting in the carving.

The stained windows, which form an interesting collection
of arms and legends, are in memory of Archbishop Musgrave,
once Bishop of Hereford, to whom there is also another
window by Warrington in the wall of the aisle above the
chantry, which is only 11 feet in height. The subjects are
taken from the life of St. Paul.

Monument to Bishop Raynaldus, 1115, one of the chief of
the Norman builders of Hereford.

In a Perpendicular recess on the left of the door opening to
the turret staircase which leads to the archive room and
chapter library is an effigy said to be of Bishop Hugh de
Mapenore, 1219. Above is a stained glass window by Clayton
and Bell, placed here as a memorial of John Hunt, organist,[pg 073]
who died 1842, and his nephew. There is also a small brass
plate at the side of the window, from which we learn that the
nephew James died “of grief three days after his uncle.”

VIEW BEHIND THE ALTAR, LOOKING NORTH. AFTER A DRAWING BY W. H. BARTLETT, 1830.

In the middle bay on the north side of the choir is the
monument of Bishop Bennett (1617), who was buried here.
He wears a close black cap, and the rochet and his feet are
resting on a lion. Across his tomb one gets a fine view of the
Norman double arches of the triforium stage on the other side
of the choir.

In the north wall of the north choir aisle in the first of the
series of arched recesses, of Decorated character, with floral
ornament in the mouldings, is an effigy assigned to Bishop
Geoffrey de Cliva (died 1120), and in the same bay of the
choir as Bishop Bennett’s tomb is the effigy of a bishop, fully
vested, holding the model of a tower. It is assigned to Bishop
Giles De Braose (died 1215), who was erroneously thought to
have been the builder of the western tower (which fell in 1786).
This effigy belongs to the Perpendicular period, when a number
of memorials were erected to earlier bishops.

In the calendar of the ancient missal “Secundum usum
Herefordensem,” previously quoted, occurs the following entry:—”XV.
Kal. Decem. Obitus pie memorie Egidii de Breusa
Herefordensis Episcopi, qui inter cetera bona decimas omnium
molendinorum maneriorium suorum Herefordensi Ecclesie contulit,
et per cartam quam a Domino Rege Johanne acquisivit omnes
homines sui ab exactionibus vicecomitum liberantur.“

In the easternmost bay on the north of the choir is the effigy
of Bishop Stanbury, provost of Eton and builder of the chantry
already described. It is a fine alabaster effigy with accompanying
figures. The bishop wears alb, stole, and chasuble.

Beyond the entrance to Bishop Stanbury’s Chantry is a
Perpendicular effigy under an arch which is assigned to Bishop
Richard de Capella (died 1127).

On the chancel floor is a very good brass to Bishop Trilleck
(died 1360).

In the north-east transept are the following antiquarian remains:—Two
altar-stones, nearly perfect, whereon are placed:—

Six mutilated effigies of unknown lay persons, probably
buried in or near the Magdalen Chapels, but dug up on the
south side of the Bishop’s Cloisters, A.D. 1820, and brought
inside the cathedral A.D. 1862.

[pg 074]

Two matrices of
brasses; also a small
one on the wall.

The wooden pulpit—very
late Perpendicular
work from which every
canon on his appointment
formerly had to
preach forty sermons on
forty different days in
succession.

We may also notice
two rich pieces of iron-work
from Sir A.
Denton’s tomb: the
head of a knight or
templar’s effigy and
several heraldic shields
from monuments in the
cathedral—especially
seven in alabaster now
placed against the east
wall.

COMPARTMENT OF CHOIR, EXTERIOR,
NORTH SIDE.

The Choir, with its
details of architecture
and its individual accessories,
is very beautiful,
notwithstanding an
unusual deficiency of
light, caused by the
position of the transepts,
which practically
intercept all light except
that from the clerestory.
It consists of three lofty
Norman bays of three
stages. The middle of
the three stages has
some exquisite dwarfed
Norman arches with no
triforium passages; but[pg 075]
there is one in the upper
stage, with slender and
graceful Early English
arches and stained glass
at back. The vaulting
is also Early English,
and dates from about
the middle of the
thirteenth century.

COMPARTMENT OF CHOIR, INTERIOR, NORTH SIDE.

The principal arches
of the choir are supported
by massive piers
with square bases. The
shafts are semi-detached
and bear capitals enriched
with foliated and
grotesque ornament. In
each bay on the triforium
level a wide
Norman arch envelops
two smaller arches, supported
by semi-circular
piers on each side.

A richly carved square-string
course runs along
the base of the triforium.

The east end of the
choir was covered before
1841 by the
“Grecian” screen, a
wooden erection placed
there by Bishop Bisse
in 1717, and above it a
Decorated window containing
a stained glass
representation of the
Last Supper after the
picture by Benjamin
West. The improvement
effected by the[pg 076]
removal of this screen with its heterogeneous appendages was
immense. The great Norman arch was once more exposed to
view; and, in place of the Decorated window, we now have
three lancets at the back of the clerestory passage.

In describing the discoveries led up to by the removal of
the old screen, Dean Merewether says: “By cautious examination
of the parts walled up it was discovered that the capitals
were all perfect, and that this exquisite and grand construction,
the mutilation and concealment of which it is utterly impossible
to account for, was in fact made up of five arches, the interior
and smallest supported by the two semi-columns, and each of
the others increasing in span as it approached the front upon
square and circular shafts alternately, the faces of each arch
being beautifully decorated with the choicest Norman ornaments.
Of the four lateral arches, the two first had been not
only hid by the oak panelling of the screen, but were also,
like the two others, closed up with lath and plaster as the
central arch; and when these incumbrances and desecrations
were taken away it is impossible to describe adequately the
glorious effect produced, rendered more solemn and impressive
by the appearance of the ancient monuments of Bishops
Reynelm, Mayew, Stanbury, and Benet, whose ashes rest
beneath these massive arches, of which, together with the
noble triforium above, before the Conquest, Athelstan had
probably been the founder, and the former of those just
mentioned, the completer and restorer after that era.”

The reredos is in Bath stone and marble, and was designed
by Mr. Cottingham, junior, as a memorial to Mr. Joseph Bailey,
1850, who represented the county for several years in Parliament.

The sculptor was Boulton, and the subject is our Lord’s Passion,
in five deep panels occupying canopied compartments divided
by small shafts supporting angels, who carry the instruments
of the Passion. The subjects in the separate panels are:—1.
The Agony in the Garden; 2. Christ Bearing the Cross; 3. The
Crucifixion; 4. The Resurrection; and 5. The Three Women at
the Sepulchre.

EAST END OF THE CHOIR IN 1841.

Above the reredos a broad spandrel left by two pointed arches
springing from a central pier fills the upper part of the Norman
arch. The pier itself is old, but the upper part is a restoration
of Mr. Cottingham’s. The spandrel is covered with modern[pg 079]
sculpture, as may be seen in the illustration. The subject is
the Saviour in Majesty, the four evangelists holding scrolls;
and below a figure of King Ethelbert.

An older representation of King Ethelbert is the small
effigy on a bracket against the easternmost pier south of the
choir, close to the head of the tomb of Bishop Mayo, who had
desired in his will to be buried by the image of King Ethelbert.
It was dug up about the year 1700 at the entrance to the Lady
Chapel, where it had doubtless been buried in a mutilated condition
when the edict went forth
for the destruction of shrines and
images.

EARLY ENGLISH WINDOW MOULDING.

Originally there were other representations
of St. Ethelbert:
on the tombs of Bishops Cantilupe
and Mayo, Dean Frowcester,
Archdeacon Rudhale, Præcentor
Porter; in colour on the walls of
the chapter-house and the tomb
of Joanna de Kilpec; in ancient
glass, recently restored, in a
window in the south aisle of the
choir; and in a stone-carving
over the door of the Bishop’s
Cloister, and the effigy formerly
on the west front.

Opposite the throne a slab of
marble, from designs by Scott,
marks the spot, as far as it is known, where Ethelbert was
buried.

The Choir-stalls are largely ancient, belonging to the
Decorated period. They have good canopy work, and are
otherwise excellent in detail. Some of the misereres are quaint,
among them being found several examples of the curiously
secular subjects chosen for this purpose by the wood-carvers
of the period.

In addition to the bishop’s throne, which is of the fourteenth
century, there is, on the north side of the sacrarium, a very old
episcopal chair, concerning which a tradition remains that King
Stephen sat in it when he visited Hereford. Be this as it
may, the Hereford chair is undoubtedly of very great antiquity,[pg 080]
and belongs to, or at least is similar to, the earliest kind
of furniture used in this country. The dimensions of the
chair are—height, 3 feet 9 inches; breadth, 33 inches; front
to back, 22 inches. The entire chair is formed of 53 pieces,
without including the seat of two boards and the two small
circular heads in front.

Traces of ancient colour—vermilion and gold—may
still be seen in several of the narrow bands: a complete
list of other painted work which has been recorded or still
exists in the cathedral has been compiled by Mr C. E.
Keyser.6

The Cathedral Library.—The Archive Chamber, on the
Library. This room, which has been restored by Sir G. G.
Scott, is now approached by a winding stone staircase.

In earlier times access was only obtainable either by a draw-bridge
or some other movable appliance crossing the great
north window. The Library (which Botfield7 calls “a most
excellent specimen of a genuine monastic library”) contains
about 2000 volumes, including many rare and interesting manuscripts,
most of which are still chained to the shelves. Every
chain is from 3 to 4 feet long, with a ring at each end and a swivel
in the middle. The rings are strung on iron rods secured by
metal-work at one end of the bookcase. There are in this
chamber eighty capacious oak cupboards, which contain the
whole of the deeds and documents belonging to the Dean and
Chapter, the accumulation of eight centuries.

THE REREDOS.

Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.

Among the most remarkable printed books are:—A series of
Bibles, 1480 to 1690; Caxton’s Legenda Aurea, 1483; Higden’s
Polychronicon, by Caxton, 1495; Lyndewode, Super Constitutiones
Provinciales, 1475; Nonius Marcellus, De proprietate
sermonum, 1476, printed at Venice by Nicolas Jenson; and
the Nuremberg Chronicle, completed July 1493. Of the
manuscripts, the most interesting is an ancient Antiphonarium,
containing the old “Hereford Use.” One of the documents
attached to this volume states: “The Dean and Chapter of
Hereford purchased this book of Mr William Hawes at the[pg 083]
price of twelve guineas. It was bought by him some years
since at a book-stall in Drury Lane, London, and attracted his
notice from the quantity of music which appeared interspersed
in it.”

The date of the writing is probably about 1270, the obit of
Peter de Aquablanca being entered in the Kalendar in the
hand of the original scribe and the following obit in another
hand.

The oldest of all the treasures preserved at Hereford Cathedral,
being certainly one thousand years old at least, is a Latin
version of the Four Gospels written in Anglo-Saxon characters.

The Rev. F. Havergal thus describes it: “This MS. is written
on stout vellum, and measures about 9 x 7 inches. It consists
of 135 leaves. Three coloured titles remain, those to the
Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. John. Two illuminated
leaves are missing—those that would follow folio 1 and
folio 59. With the exception of these two lacunæ, the MS.
contains the whole of the Four Gospels.

No exact date can be assigned, but several eminent
authorities agree that it is the work of the eighth or ninth
century.

It does not exactly accord with any of the other well-known
MS. of that period, having a peculiar character of its own.

From the evidence of the materials it would appear to have
been written in the country, probably in Mercia, and not at
any of the great monasteries.

The text of this MS. is ante-Hieronymian, and offers a valuable
example of the Irish (or British) recension of the original
African text. Thus it has a large proportion of readings in
common with the Cambridge Gospels, St. Chad’s Gospels, the
Rushworth Gospels, and the Book of Deir.

On the concluding leaves of this volume there is an entry of
a deed in Anglo-Saxon made in the reign of Canute, of which
the following is a translation:—

“Note of a Shire-mote held at Ægelnoth’s Stone in Herefordshire
in the reign of King Cnut, at which were present the
Bishop Athelstan, the Sheriff Bruning, and Ægelgeard of
Frome, and Leofrine of Frome, and Godric of Stoke, and all
the thanes in Herefordshire. At which assembly Edwine,
son of Enneawne, complained against his mother concerning
certain lands at Welintone and Cyrdesley. The bishop asked[pg 084]
who should answer for the mother, which Thurcyl the White
proffered to do if he knew the cause of accusation.

“Then they chose three thanes and sent to the mother to
ask her what the cause of complaint was. Then she declared
that she had no land that pertained in ought to her son, and
was very angry with him, and calling Leoflœda, her relative,
she, in presence of the thanes, bequeathed to her after her
own death all her lands, money, clothes, and property, and
desired them to inform the Shire-mote of her bequest, and
desire them to witness it. They did so; after which Thurcyl
the White (who was husband of Leoflœda) stood up, and
requested the thanes to deliver free (or clean) to his wife all
the lands that had been bequeathed to her, and they so did.
And after this Thurcyl rode to St. Ethelbert’s Minster, and
by leave and witness of all the folk caused the transaction to
be recorded in a book of the Gospels.”

An Ancient Chasse or Reliquary is shown among the
treasures of the cathedral, which was looked upon for a long
time as a representation of the murder of St. Ethelbert, but this
is only an example of the many traditional tales which modern
study and research are compelled to discard. It undoubtedly
represents the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury. On the
lower part is the murder; on the upper, the entombment of the
saint, very similar in style to the later Limoges work of the
thirteenth century.

The Rev. Francis Havergal gives a detailed description,
which we have condensed to the following:—

This reliquary consists of oak, perfectly sound, covered with
copper plates overlaid with Limoges enamel. It is 8-1/4 inches
high, 7 long and 3-1/2 broad. The back opens on hinges and
fastens with a lock and key, and the upper part sloped so as
to form an acutely-pointed roof; above this is a ridge-piece;
the whole rests on four square feet. Front of Shrine:—Here
are two compartments; the lower one shows on the right side
an altar, of which the south end faces the spectator; it is
supported on four legs and has an antependium. Upon the
altar stands a plain cross on a pyramidal base, and in front of it
a chalice covered with a paten. Before, or technically speaking,
in the midst of the altar stands a bishop celebrating mass,
having both hands extended towards the chalice, as if he were
about to elevate it. He has curly hair and a beard and[pg 085]
moustache. He wears a low mitre, a chasuble, fringed maniple,
and an alb.

In the top right-hand corner is a cloud from which issues a
hand pointing towards the figure just described.

Behind, to the left, stand three figures. The foremost has
just thrust the point of a large double-edged sword, with a
plain cross hilt, through the neck of the bishop from back to
front.

ANCIENT RELIQUARY IN THE CATHEDRAL.

The upper compartment represents the entombment of the
bishop. The middle of the design is occupied by an altar
tomb, into which the body, swathed in a diapered winding-sheet,
is being lowered.

The ends of the bier are supported by two kneeling
figures.

[pg 086]

On the side of the tomb furthest from the spectator is a
bishop or abbot without the mitre looking toward a figure on
his right, who carries a tablet or open book with some words
upon it.

At either extremity of this panel stands a figure censing the
corpse with a circular thurible.

The border of each compartment is formed by a double invected
pattern of gold and enamel. The ridge-piece is of copper
perforated with eight keyhole ornaments.

The back of the shrine is also divided into two compartments,
and is decorated with quatrefoils.

It is pierced in the middle of the upper border by a keyhole
communicating with a lock on the inside.

The right-hand gable is occupied by the figure of a female
saint. The left gable is occupied by the figure of a male
saint.

A border of small gilt quatrefoils on a chocolate ground runs
round the margins of the two ends and four back plates.

Those parts of the copper plates which are not enamelled are
gilded, while the colours used in the enamelling are blue, are
light-blue, green, yellow, red, chocolate, and white.

In the interior, on that side to which the lower front plate
corresponds, is a cross pattée fitchée painted in red upon oak,
which oak bears traces of having been stained with blood or
some other liquid. The wood at the bottom is evidently
modern. This reliquary is said to have been originally placed
upon the high altar. It appears to have been preserved by
some ancient Roman Catholic family until it came into the
possession of the late Canon Russell, and bequeathed by him
to the authorities of the cathedral.

The art of enamelling metals appears to have been introduced
from Byzantium through Venice into Western Europe at the
close of the tenth century. After this time Greek artists are
known to have visited this country, and to have carried on a
lucrative trade in the manufacture of sacred vessels, shrines,
etc.

Ancient Gold Rings. One of pure gold, supposed to
have been worn by a knight templar, was ploughed up near
Hereford. The device on the raised besel is a cross pattée in
a square compartment, on each side of which are a crescent
and a triple-thonged scourge.

[pg 087]

Within the hoop is engraved in black-letter character
“Sancte Michael.” Date about 1380.

A massive ring set with a rough ruby of pale colour was
found in the tomb of Bishop Mayew. On each side a bold
tan cross with a bell is engraved. These were originally filled
with green enamel. Inside is engraved and enamelled “Ave
Maria.”

A superb ring was also found in Bishop Stanbury’s tomb,
on the north side of the altar. It contains a fine and perfect
sapphire, and flowers and foliage are beautifully worked in
black enamel on each side of the stone.

A fine gold ring was discovered in Bishop Trilleck’s grave
in 1813, but was stolen in 1838 from the cathedral. It was
never recovered, though £30 was offered as a reward.

The Stained Glass has survived only in a few fragments,
scattered about the eastern end of the cathedral.

Some of the best, apparently of early fourteenth century date,
is in one of the lancets on the south side of the Lady Chapel,
west of the Audley Chapel. The subjects are:

1. Christ surrounded by symbols of the four evangelists;
2. Lamb and flag; 3. Angel and Maries at the sepulchre; 4.
Crucifixion; 5. Christ bearing His cross.

In the north-east transept is an ancient glass window, restored
and entirely releaded by Warrington, at the cost of the
Dean and Chapter, Oct. 1864. It is a fairly good specimen
of fourteenth century work. For many years it was hidden
away in old boxes, and was formerly fixed in some of the
windows on the south side of the nave.

The figures represent—1. St. Katherine; 2. St. Michael; 3.
St. Gregory; 4. St. Thomas of Canterbury.

In the south-east transept, again, is a window of ancient
glass, erected under the same circumstances. The figures in
this case represent—1. St. Mary Magdalene; 2. St. Ethelbert;
3. St. Augustine; 4. St. George.

In the north aisle of the nave is a two-light window by
Warrington. It was erected in 1862 by Archdeacon Lane
Freer to the memory of Canon and Mrs. Clutton. The subjects
are from the life of St. John the Baptist.

In the north transept is a very fine memorial window to
Archdeacon Lane Freer, erected at a cost of £1316. The
window is one of the largest of the Geometric period (temp.[pg 088]
Edward I.) in England, the glass being 48 feet 6 inches in
height by 21 feet 6 inches in breadth. About five or six
shades each of ruby and Canterbury blue are the dominating
colours. Plain white glass has also been wisely used in the
upper part of the window. It was designed and erected by
Messrs. Hardman.

There is a small window by Clayton and Bell in the north
aisle of the choir to the memory of John Hunt, organist of
the cathedral. The subjects, in eight medallions, are:—1, 2.
King David; 3, 4. Jubal; 5, 6. Zachariah the Jewish Priest;
7. St. Cecilia; 8. Aldhelm. In Bishop Stanbury’s Chapel is
a memorial window to Archdeacon Musgrave, of which the
subjects are:—1. St. Paul present at the Martyrdom of S.
Stephen; 2. Conversion of St. Paul; 3. The Apostle consecrating
Presbyters; 4. Elymas smitten with Blindness. In the
lower part of the window, 5. Sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas
at Lystra; 6. St. Paul before the Elders at Jerusalem; 7. His
Trial before Agrippa; 8. His Martyrdom.

MONUMENTAL CROCKET.

EARLY ENGLISH BASEMENT MOULDING.

The five eastern windows in the Lady Chapel were designed
by Mr. Cottingham, junior, and executed by Gibbs, to the
memory of Dean Merewether.

A series of twenty-one subjects, in medallions, connected[pg 089]
with the life of our Lord. These windows were erected in
1852.

In the south-east transept is a memorial window to Bishop
Huntingford, 1816 to 1832. It was designed and manufactured
by Warrington at the sole cost of Lord Saye and
Sele.

The upper part of the tracery is filled with the arms of
George III., those of the See of Gloucester, the See of Hereford,
Winchester College, and of the bishop’s family.

The subjects, relating to St. Peter, are:—

1. His Call; 2. Walking on the Sea; 3. Receiving the Keys;
4. Denial of our Lord; 5. S. Peter and S. John at the Gate
of the Temple; 6. Baptism of Cornelius; 7. Raising of Dorcas;
8. Deliverance from Prison by an Angel.

In the north and south side of the clerestory of the choir
are simple stained glass windows, consisting of various patterns.
They were manufactured by Messrs. Castell of Whitechapel.

The eastern central window of the choir was an anonymous
gift in 1851, executed by Hardman.

Its beauties are entirely lost at its present height from the
ground. The circular medallions are 3 feet in diameter, the
subjects being:—

1. The Ascension; 2. The Resurrection; 3. The Crucifixion.

The upper semi-circles represent Christ healing lepers and
demoniacs; the lower, His being taken down from the Cross,
and Mary with the box of precious ointment.

CHAPTER IV. – HISTORY OF THE SEE.

The true origin of the See of Hereford is lost in remote
antiquity. However, it seems probable from the researches of
many antiquarians that when Putta came to preside here in
the seventh century the see was re-established.

The Rev. Francis Havergal writes on this matter in the
beginning of his Fasti Herefordenses.

“The Welsh claim a high antiquity for Hereford as the
recognised centre of Christianity in this district. Archbishop
Usher asserts that it was the seat of an Episcopal See in the
sixth century, when one of its bishops attended a synod convened
by the Archbishop of Caerleon (A.D. 544). In the Lives of
the British Saints (Rev. W. J. Reeves, 1853), we learn that
Geraint ab Erbin, cousin of King Arthur, who died A.D. 542,
is said to have founded a church at Caerffawydd, the ancient
British name for Hereford. In Wilkin’s Concilia, I. 24, it is
recorded that beyond all doubt a Bishop of Hereford was present
at the conference with St. Augustine, A.D. 601. Full particulars
are given of the supposed time and place of this conference.
It is also stated—’In secunda affuisse perhibentur septem hi
Britannici episcopi Herefordensis, Tavensis alias Llantavensis,
Paternensis, Banchoriensis, Chirensis alias Elinensis, Uniacensis
alias Wiccensis, Morganensis.‘ It is styled ‘Synodus Wigornensis,’
or according to Spelman, ‘Pambritannicam.’ Nothing
whatever is known of the names or of the number of British
bishops who presided over the earliest church at Hereford.”

The boundaries of this diocese in the tenth century are
defined in Anglo-Saxon in an ancient volume known as the
Mundy Gospels, now in the library of Pembroke College,
Cambridge.

[pg 091]

“The condition of the Church of Hereford (circa 1290 A.D.)
gave clear testimony to the liberal piety of its founders by the
extensiveness of its lands. The diocese itself was richly
endowed by nature, and enviably situated. Those of St.
Asaph, Lichfield, Worcester, Llandaff, and St. David’s, were
its neighbours. On the north it stretched from where the
Severn enters Shropshire to where that river is joined on the
south by the influx of the Wye. From the west to the east
perhaps its greatest width might have been found from a point
where the latter river, near Hay, leaves the counties of Radnor
and Brecon, by a line drawn to the bridge at Gloucester. It
embraced portions of the counties of Radnor, Montgomery,
Salop, Worcester, and Gloucester, and touched upon that of
Brecon. It included the town of Monmouth, with four parishes,
in its neighbourhood. The Severn environed its upper part.
Almost midway it was traversed by the Teme, and the Wye pursued
its endless windings through the lower district,—a region
altogether remarkable for its variety, fertility, and beauty,
abounding in woods and streams, rich pastures, extensive
forests, and noble mountains. In several of the finest parts of
it Episcopal manors had been allotted, furnishing abundant
supplies to the occupiers of the see.”8

In the early history of British dioceses, territorial boundaries
were so vague as to be scarcely definable, but one of the earliest
of the bishops holding office prior to the landing of Augustine
was one Dubric, son of Brychan, who established a sort of
college at Hentland, near Ross, and later on removed to another
spot on the Wye, near Madley, his birthplace, being guided
thither by the discovery of a white sow and litter of piglings in
a meadow; a sign similar to the one by which the site of Alba
Longa was pointed out to the pious son of Anchises.

Dubric probably became a bishop about 470, resigned his
see in 512, and died in Bardsey Island, A.D. 522.

It was this Dubric who is said to have crowned Arthur at
Cirencester, A.D. 506. When he became bishop he moved to
Caerleon, and was succeeded there by Dewi, or David, who removed
the see to Menevia (St. David’s).

The Saxons were driving the British inhabitants more and
more to the west, and before the close of the sixth century they[pg 092]
had founded the Mercian kingdom, reaching beyond the Severn,
and in some places beyond the Wye.

The See of Hereford properly owes its origin to that of Lichfield,
as Sexwulf, Bishop of that diocese, placed at Hereford
Putta, Bishop of Rochester, when his cathedral was destroyed
by the Mercian King Ethelred.

From Bede we learn that in 668 A.D. Putta died, and that
one Tyrhtel succeeded him, and was followed by Torhtere.

Wahlstod, A.D. 731, the next Bishop, is referred to by both
Florence of Worcester and William of Malmsbury, as well as
Bede. We also hear of him in the writings of Cuthbert, who
followed him in 736. Cuthbert relates in some verses that
Wahlstod began the building of a great and magnificent cross,
which he, Cuthbert, completed.

Cuthbert died, A.D. 758, and was followed by Podda, A.D.
746. The names of these early Bishops cannot all be regarded
as certain, and their dates are, in many cases, only approximate.
Some of them may have been merely assistants or suffragans to
other Bishops of Hereford.

The remaining Bishops of Hereford, prior to the Conquest, we
give in the same order as the Rev. H. W. Phillott in his
valuable little Diocesan History.

A.D. 758, Hecca.
777, Aldberht.
781, Esne.
793, Cedmand (doubtful).
796, Edulf.
798, Uttel.
803, Wulfheard.
824, Beonna.
825, Eadulf (doubtful).
833, Cedda.
836, Eadulf.
838, Cuthwulf.
866, Deorlaf.
868, Ethelbert.
888, Cynemund.
895, Athelstane I.
901, Edgar.
930, Tidhelm.
935, Wulfhelm.
941, Elfric.
966, Ethelwolf.
1016, Athelstane II.: he rebuilt the cathedral “from the
foundations”;9 but also saw it destroyed in a
raid of the Welsh and Irish under Elfgar.
1056, Leofgar, slain in a fight with the Welsh.

Walter of Lorraine, A.D. 1061-1079. The diocese had
been administered for the last four years by the Bishop of Worcester,[pg 093]
when Queen Edith’s chaplain, a foreigner by birth, Walter
of Lorraine, was appointed. Beyond a probably satirical
reference by William of Malmsbury, all that is known of Walter
is an account of a discreditable death.

Robert de Losinga, A.D. 1079-1095. A man of much
learning and ability. During his episcopate, according to William
of Malmsbury, the cathedral was rebuilt after the pattern of
Charlemagne’s church at Aix-la-Chapelle. In his time also
Walter de Lacy built the Church of St. Peter at Hereford. He
was a keen man of business, and it has been suggested that he
was open to bribery, but this accusation is hardly compatible
with his intimate companionship with the high-minded Wulstan,
Bishop of Worcester, the date of whose death, January 19,
1095, is included in the calendar of the Hereford Service-Book.

A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.

Gerard, A.D. 1096-1101. Three days after the body of
William Rufus had been brought from the forest to Winchester
by Purkiss, the charcoal burner, Gerard, who was the Bishop
of Winchester’s nephew, assisted at the coronation of Henry I.,
for which service it was said he was promised the first vacant
archiepiscopal see. The King tried to evade the bargain a few
years later by promising to increase the Hereford income to the
value of that at York, but Gerard carried the day and obtained
his promotion.

[pg 094]

Reynelm, A.D. 1107-1115, Chancellor to Queen Matilda;
he resigned his appointment as soon as it was conferred, on
account of the King’s quarrel with Anselm on the question of
investiture, was banished for six years, and was only consecrated
in 1107. He is said to have been the founder of the hospital
of St. Ethelbert, and continued the work in the Cathedral begun
by Robert de Losinga. He regulated the establishment of
prebendaries and canons living under a rule.

Geoffrey de Clive, A.D. 1115-1119. During the latter
years of this episcopate, a question of jurisdiction over
the districts of Ergyng and Ewias, which had begun in the
previous century, was revived between the Bishop of Llandaff
and the Bishops of Hereford and St. David’s.

Richard de Capella, A.D. 1120-1127, King’s chaplain and
keeper of the Great Seal under the Chancellor. He helped to
build at Hereford a bridge over the Wye.

During his episcopate the Royal Charter was granted for the
annual holding of a three days’ fair (increased to nine days
later) commencing on the evening of the 19th of May, called
St. Ethelbert’s Day.

Nine-tenths of the profits of this fair went to the Bishop and
the rest to the Canons of the Cathedral. The bishop’s bailiff
held a court within the palace precincts, with pillory and stocks.
The bishop also had a gaol for the incarceration of offenders
against his rights during fair-time.

Tolls were levied at each gate of the city. The suspension
of civic authority during fair-time was for centuries a source of
frequent quarrels. As late as the eighteenth century a ballad-singer
was punished by the bishop’s officers.

The wreck of the “White Ship” occurred during this episcopate
(Nov. 25th, 1120), and one of the victims was Geoffrey,
Archdeacon of Hereford.

Robert de Bethune, A.D. 1131-1148, had become prior of
his monastery at his native place of Bethune, in French Flanders,
and thence had gone to Llanthony, a priory in a glen of the
Hatteral Hills in the disputed district of Ewias.

When later on the country was torn and despoiled with the
bitter struggle for the Crown, Bishop Robert, who was a
personal friend of Henry, Bishop of Winchester, the King’s
brother, sided with Stephen.

[pg 095]

Hereford was seized near the beginning of the campaign by
Geoffrey de Talebot, and held by him for four or five weeks
for the Empress Matilda. It was then captured by Stephen,
and the victory celebrated in the cathedral on Whitsunday
(A.D. 1138), when the King attended mass wearing his crown,
and seated, it is said, in the old chair described in an earlier
chapter.

In 1139, the Empress’s army again attacked Hereford, and
seizing the cathedral, drove out the clergy, fortified it, and used
it as a vantage ground from which to attack the castle. The
tower was used as a platform, from which missiles were thrown,
and the nave as a stable; while a trench and rampart was
carried across the graveyard.

Bishop Robert was present at Winchester when the Empress
was accepted there by the clergy, and returned thence to
Hereford to purify the cathedral. He died at Chalons
of a disease contracted while attending a council of Pope
Eugenius III.

The Pope decided that his body should be taken to Hereford,
and it was enclosed in the hide of an ox for the journey.
Both at Canterbury and at London were great demonstrations
of grief, which were again repeated at Ross, and on a still larger
scale at Hereford. Bishop Robert was undoubtedly a great
man, and his reputation for fine character, bravery, and ability
was well deserved.

Gilbert Foliot, A.D. 1148-1163, the next Bishop, had been
consecrated as Abbot of St. Peter’s, Gloucester, by Bishop
Robert, with whom he had contracted an early friendship as
far back as 1139.

On the death of Bishop Robert, he was consecrated at St.
Omer. He assisted at the consecration of Becket at Canterbury,
and the next year was transferred to the See of London.
He was followed by Robert of Maledon, A.D. 1163-1168,
said to have been remarkably wise.

Amongst his pupils he numbered John of Salisbury. He
attended the council of Clarendon, A.D. 1162, and in 1164 was
present at the meeting at Northampton between Becket and
the King.

Such was the fury and importance of the Becket controversy
that even distant Hereford was entangled with it. Two
Hereford Bishops took part in the quarrel, and it was through[pg 096]
this that the see continued vacant for six years after Bishop
Robert’s death.

Notwithstanding the rigorous order of Henry VIII., A.D.
1538, for the destruction of all images and pictures of Bishop
Becket, there still existed in the cathedral, till late in the
seventeenth century, a wall painting of the Archbishop, and
even yet in the north-east transept there remains a figure of
him in one of the windows in good preservation. The
enamelled chasse or reliquary, with scenes of Becket’s murder
and entombment, and its dark but doubtful stain, has already
been described among the treasures of the cathedral.

Some four miles from Hereford is yet another memorial still
remaining in a well-preserved window of painted glass at
Credenhill, a part of which represents the murdered Becket.
Lastly, the festival of the translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury,
July 7, is still included in the cathedral calendar.

Robert Foliot, A.D. 1174-1186, had been a friend of
Becket’s, and may have had some share in his education.

William de Vere, A.D. 1186-1199, removed the apsidal
termination at the east end of the cathedral, and is said to
have erected chapels, since replaced by the Lady Chapel and
its vestibule.

Giles de Braose, A.D. 1200-1215, a stubborn opponent
of King John.

Hugh de Mapenor, A.D. 1216-1219, received his appointment
by the influence of the papal legate, who, after King
John’s submission, claimed the right of nomination to all
vacant sees and benefices.

Hugh Foliot, A.D. 1219-1234, founded the Hospital of
St. Katherine at Ledbury, in which still hangs a portrait of
him, painted from an older picture. A tooth of St. Ethelbert
was presented to the cathedral during his episcopacy. He
endowed the Chapels of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Katherine,
in the ancient building adjoining the Bishop’s palace, destroyed
in the eighteenth century.

Ralph de Maydenstan, A.D. 1234-1239, presented to
the see a house in Fish Street Hill, London, as a residence
for the bishops when in the metropolis. He also made various
gifts to the cathedral, the chapter, and the college of vicars
choral. This Bishop was one of the commissioners to settle
the marriage of Henry III. with Eleanor of Provence.

[pg 097]

Peter of Savoy (Aquablanca), A.D. 1240-1268, a native
of Aqua Bella, near Chambéry, whose appointment was an
instance of the preference Henry III. showed for foreigners.
One of the most unpopular men in England; he was hand in
glove with the weak-minded, waxen-hearted King in schemes
for money getting.

Bishop Aquablanca probably built the graceful north-west
transept of the cathedral, containing the shrine under which lie
the remains of his nephew, a Dean of Hereford, together with
his own, except the heart. This was carried, as he had requested
it should be, to the church he had founded in his
native place.

John de Breton, or Bruton, A.D. 1268-1275.

Thomas de Cantilupe, A.D. 1275-1282. Born A.D.
1220, he showed, as a child, unusual religious zeal, was educated
at Oxford and Paris, and for some years filled the office of
Chancellor of England at the choice of the barons. This post
he lost on the death of Simon de Montfort. When he was
elected by the Chapter of Hereford to fill the episcopal chair
on De Breton’s death he was only persuaded to accept it with
difficulty.

Bishop Cantilupe was renowned for his extreme piety and
devotional habits. In a dispute concerning the chace of
Colwall, near Malvern Forest, from which was derived the
Bishop’s supply of game, he maintained successfully the episcopal
rights. He was also triumphant in a more important
quarrel with the Welsh King Llewellyn about the wrongful
appropriation of three manors.

When Lord Clifford was in trouble for plundering his cattle
and maltreating his tenants, Bishop Cantilupe inflicted personal
chastisement upon him with a rod in the cathedral. The
clergy no less than laymen did he subdue, appealing when
necessary to the Pope.

In a quarrel arising out of a matrimonial case, in which the
defendant appealed to Canterbury against a sentence of the
sub-dean of Hereford, he was at last excommunicated by the
Archbishop for refusing to go to discuss the affair with him at
Lambeth. At Rome he obtained a favourable decree, but
died in Tuscany on the homeward journey.

As already described, his remains were finally laid with great
pomp in the Lady Chapel.

[pg 098]

Five years later the bones of Bishop Cantilupe were moved
to the Chapel of St. Katherine, in the north-west transept.
Twice more were they moved, finally resting in the same
Chapel of St. Katherine.

Richard Swinfield, A.D. 1283-1316, the next Bishop, had
been Bishop Cantilupe’s devoted chaplain. He kept wisely
aloof from politics, but offered a keen resistance to any infringement
on the rights of his diocese. Several boundary
questions were settled by Bishop Swinfield, and in 1289-90 he
made a tour through his diocese, of which has come down to us
a journal of daily expenses.

Bishop Swinfield was the probable builder of the nave-aisles
and two easternmost transepts. In his time the “Mappa
Mundi” came into possession of the Chapter.

He worked hard to obtain the Canonisation of his illustrious
predecessor, but it was not till four years after his death that
Pope John XXII. granted an act for the purpose. He was
buried in the cathedral.

Adam Orleton, A.D. 1316-1327, was a friend of Roger
Mortimer, and consequently was opposed to Edward II.
Throughout the struggle of those many miserable years the
affairs of the diocese were dragged in the mire of civil war.
It was the Bishop of Hereford who, at Neath Abbey, took the
King, carried him to Kenilworth, and deprived him of the
Great Seal. The Queen was staying at Hereford, and thither
many of the King’s adherents were taken with the Chancellor
and Hugh Despenser. The last-named was hanged in the
town, decapitated, and quartered.

Bishop Adam showed much ability in managing the affairs
of the cathedral. He obtained a grant of revenues of two
churches from Pope John XXII. for monies necessary for the
dedication of the Cantilupe shrine, and also for repairs in the
cathedral. He was followed on his translation to Worcester by

Thomas Charleton, A.D. 1328-1343, who was made
treasurer of England in 1329. In 1337 he went to Ireland as
chancellor. He died in 1343.

John Trilleck, A.D. 1344-1360. The Black Death
reached Herefordshire in 1349, and Bishop Trilleck is said to
have kept it at bay in the city by a procession of the shrine of
the recently canonised St. Thomas of Hereford.

Bishop Trilleck was buried in the cathedral, and a fine brass[pg 099]
effigy was placed on his grave. “Gratus, prudens, pius” are
among the words which may be still read from the mutilated
inscription, and they appear to have had more justification than
the rhetoric of the average epitaph.

TOMB OF BISHOP THOS. CHARLETON.

Lewis Charleton, A.D. 1361-1369, was appointed by
papal provision. The Black Death made a second visitation
in the first year of his episcopate, and it was then that the
market was removed to some distance from the town on the[pg 100]
west. The “White Cross” there placed, which bears the arms
of Bishop Charleton, may mark the spot. He bequeathed
money and some books to the cathedral.

William Courtenay, A.D. 1370-1375, was also appointed
by papal provision, which was necessary in consequence of his
youth. Although he had already held a canonry of York and
prebends in Exeter and Wells in addition to the Chancellorship
of Oxford University, he was but twenty-eight years of age.
At Oxford he had, with Wicliff, opposed the friars, though he
afterwards turned against his former ally.

John Gilbert, A.D. 1375-1389, with partial success,
went to make terms of peace with Charles VI., the French
King. He became treasurer of England in 1386, an office of
which he was deprived by Richard II. not long before his
translation to St. David’s. Bishop Gilbert founded the Cathedral
Grammar School.

Thomas Trevenant, A.D. 1389-1404. An active politician,
this Bishop assisted in the deposition of King Richard II., and
was one of the commissioners to the Pope to announce the
accession of Henry IV.

Robert Mascall, A.D. 1404-1416, was employed as a
foreign ambassador by Henry IV., who also made him his
confessor. He attended the council of Constance in 1414.

Edmund Lacy, A.D. 1417-1420. This Bishop began to
build the cloister connecting the cathedral with the Episcopal
palace.

Thomas Polton, A.D. 1420-1421, was consecrated at
Florence, and the next year was translated to Chichester.

Thomas Spofford, A.D. 1421-1448, Abbot of St. Mary’s
at York, to which post he returned on resigning his see in
1448. According to a papal bull he laid out 2,800 marks on
the buildings of the cathedral,—probably completing the
cloisters begun by Bishop Lacy. His pension on retiring was
£100 per annum. The great west window of the cathedral
was put up in his time by William Lochard.

Richard Beauchamp, A.D. 1448-1450. Son of Sir
Walter, and grandson of Lord Beauchamp of Powick, he was a
great architect in his day, although his chief work was done
after his translation to Salisbury, when he was appointed by
Edward IV. to superintend the works at Windsor which
included the rebuilding of St. George’s Chapel where he was[pg 101]
buried. It is said he was the first Chancellor of the Order of
the Garter.

Reginald Buller, A.D. 1450-1453, Abbot of St. Peter’s,
Gloucester, was translated to Lichfield. He was buried in
Hereford Cathedral.

John Stanberry, A.D. 1453-1474, was a Carmelite friar
at Oxford, and was chosen by King Henry VI. to be his
confessor, and also first Provost of Eton. In 1448 he was
made Bishop of Bangor, and five years later was translated to
Hereford. After the battle of Northampton (July, 1460), he was
taken prisoner and was incarcerated for some time in Warwick
Castle. On his release he retired to the convent of his order
at Ludlow, where he died in May, 1474. He was buried at
Hereford, near his own Chantry Chapel, which still bears his
name. He gave land from the garden of the bishop’s palace
for building a dwelling-house for the vicars choral, which was
completed in 1475.

Thomas Mylling, A.D. 1474-1492, the next Bishop, was
Abbot of St. Peter’s, Westminster, where he had been a monk.
King Edward IV. made him a Privy Councillor and gave him
the see of Hereford in remembrance of his services to Elizabeth
Woodville, whom he received into sanctuary when her husband
had to fly to Holland. After his death his body was carried
to Westminster, and the stone coffin is still there which is
said to have enclosed his remains.

Edmund Audley, A.D. 1492-1502, a prebendary of Lichfield,
of Lincoln, and of Wells, was Bishop of Rochester in 1480,
translated to Hereford in 1492, and to Salisbury in 1502. The
beautiful chantry chapel on the south side of the Lady Chapel,
near the shrine of St. Thomas of Cantilupe, was founded by
him. He also presented a silver shrine to the cathedral, and
a pulpit at St. Mary’s, Oxford, is said to be his gift.

Adrian de Castello, A.D. 1503-1504. He conducted the
negotiations between Henry VII. and the Pope; and he was translated
from Hereford to Bath and Wells, but never visited either see.

Richard Mayhew, A.D. 1504-1516, was made in 1480
the first regular president of Bishop Waynflete’s new College of
St. Mary Magdalene at Oxford. He was also Chancellor of
the University, and almoner to King Henry VII., by whom he
had been sent in 1501 to bring the Infanta Katharine of
Aragon from Spain as the bride of Prince Arthur.

[pg 102]

He was buried near the effigy of St. Ethelbert on the south
side of the choir, where his tomb is still to be seen.

Charles Booth, A.D. 1516-1535, Archdeacon of Buckingham,
and Chancellor of the Welsh Marches, left a lasting
memorial in the north porch of the cathedral, which bears
upon it the date of his death. He seems to have been much
in the King’s favour, and was summoned in 1520 to make
one of the illustrious company on the Field of the Cloth
of Gold. He was attached to the company of Henry’s
“dearest wife, the queen,” and was accompanied by thirty
“tall personages.”

On his death he left some books to the library, as well as a
tapestry for the high altar; also to his successor a gold ring
and other articles which have disappeared.

Edward Foxe, A.D. 1535-1538. This “principal pillar of
the Reformation,” as Fuller calls him, is said by Strype to have
been “an excellent instrument” in its general progress.

A Gloucestershire worthy, having been born at Dursley in
that county, he was sent first to Eton and then to Cambridge,
becoming, in 1528, Provost of King’s College. In 1531 he
succeeded Stephen Gardiner as Archdeacon of Leicester. For
many years almoner to the King, he was employed in embassies
to France, Italy, and Germany, the most important of these
diplomatic missions being in February, 1527, when he was sent
to Rome with Gardiner to negotiate in the matter of Henry’s
separation from his “dearest wife.”

Foxe first introduced Cranmer to the King; and he, again,
wrote the book called The Difference between the Kingly and
the Ecclesiastical Power, which Henry wished people to think
he had partly written himself, intended, as it was, to make easier
his assumption of ecclesiastical supremacy.

In August, 1536, Bishop Foxe began, by deputy, a visitation
of the diocese for the valuation of all church property therein,
in accordance with the order referred to above. Dr. Coren,
his vicar-general, actually carried out the valuation, and its
results are to be found in the pages of Valor Ecclesiasticus,
printed by the Record Commissioners in 1802.

In March, 1535-6, an Act was passed by Parliament granting
to the King all religious houses possessing a revenue under £200
per annum. There were about eighteen houses in the diocese,
excluding the cathedral, and of these only the priories of Wenlock,[pg 103]
Wigmore, and Leominster possessed revenues exempting them
from appropriation. Bishop Foxe died in London in May, 1538,
and was buried in the Church of St. Mary Monthalt.

John Skypp, A.D. 1539-1552. The Archdeacon of
Leicester, Edmund Bonner, was appointed to the see on Foxe’s
death, but was removed to London before his consecration, and
John Skypp, Abbat of Wigmore, Archdeacon of Dorset, and
chaplain and almoner to Ann Boleyn, became the next Bishop.

He was associated with Cranmer, though, after Cromwell’s
execution for high treason in 1540, the Archbishop became
distant towards him. He was the part compiler with Foxe
of the Institution of a Christian Man, published in 1537, of
the Erudition or King’s Book, published in 1543, and was
probably one of the committee employed to draw up the
first Common Prayer-Book of Edward VI., in 1548, although, on
its completion, he protested against its publication. He died
in 1552 at the episcopal residence in London.

John Harley, A.D. 1553-1554, was appointed by Edward
VI. to hold the see “during good behaviour.” He was consecrated
on May 26, 1553, but only to be deposed in March,
1554. Soon after Mary came to the throne, she appointed a
commission of bishops to deprive the bishops appointed during
the reign of her brother. On various charges, and especially
on that of “inordinate life” (meaning marriage), the bishopric
of Harley was declared void. He is said to have spent the
remainder of his life wandering about in woods “instructing
his flock, and administering the sacrament according to the
order of the English book, until he died, shortly after his deposition,
a wretched exile in his own land.”

Robert Parfew, A.D. 1554-1557, also known as Wharton,
was instituted to the Hereford See at St. Mary’s Church,
Southwark, by Lord Chancellor Gardiner. He had been Abbat
of St. Saviour’s, Bermondsey, as well as Bishop of St. Asaph,
attended the baptism of Prince Edward, and was one of those
concerned in the production of the Bishop’s Book. On his
death, September 22, 1537, he bequeathed his mitre and
other ornaments to Hereford Cathedral, though whether he
was buried there or in Mold Church seems doubtful. The
Dean of Exeter, Dr. Thomas Reynolds, was appointed to
succeed him, but was imprisoned in the Marshalsea, on the
accession of Elizabeth, before he had been consecrated, and[pg 104]
died there in 1559. Fuller, in his Church History of Britain,
remarks: “I take the Marshalsea to be, in those times, the best
for the usage of prisoners, but O the misery of God’s poor
saints in Newgate, under Alexander the gaoler! More cruel
than his namesake the coppersmith was to St. Paul; in
Lollard’s Tower, the Clink, and Bonner’s Coal-house, a place
which minded them of the manner of their death, first kept
amongst coals before they were burnt to ashes.”10

John Scory, A.D. 1559-1585, was translated from
Chichester. On the accession of Mary, 1553, he is said to
have done penance for his marriage, and generally reconciled
himself with Rome, then to have withdrawn to Friesland and
retracted his recantation, becoming superintendent to the
English congregation there. When Elizabeth came to the
throne he returned, preached before her by appointment in
Lent, 1558, was restored to Chichester, and later on was
elected to Hereford.

During his episcopate the persuasive Queen induced Bishop
Scory to surrender to the Crown nine or ten of the best manors
belonging to the see, and to receive in exchange advowsons
and other less valuable possessions. In these transactions it
is possible he thought more of his own interest than that of
his successors; in any case, serious charges were brought
against him in other ways. His steward Butterfield drops into
verse on the subject. One of his stanzas runs:—

Bishop Scory was succeeded by Harberd (or Herbert)
Westphaling, A.D. 1585-1601, Prebendary of Christ Church,
Oxford: a man remarkable for the immoderate length of his
speeches, his great integrity, and a profound and unsmiling
gravity. He married a sister of the wife of Archbishop Parker,
and before his election to Hereford was treasurer of St. Paul’s
and Dean of Windsor.

According to Sir John Harrington, Bishop Westphaling was
once preaching in his cathedral when a mass of frozen snow
fell upon the roof from the tower, creating a panic among the[pg 105]
frightened congregration[**typo: congregation]. But the Bishop, remaining in his
pulpit, exhorted them to keep their places and fear not. He
spent all that he had in revenues from the see in charity and
good works, leaving, says Fuller, “no great, but a well-gotten
estate, out of which he bequeathed twenty pounds per annum
to Jesus College in Oxford.” He lies in the north transept of
the cathedral, where his effigy can still be seen.

Robert Bennett, A.D. 1602-1617, a Fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge, was a famous tennis player.

Queen Elizabeth had imprisoned him for a short time for
preaching against her projected marriage with the Duke of
Anjou, but made him Dean of Windsor towards the close of
her reign. He is said to have been vain, and especially fond
of having his name and arms carved on house fronts. In 1607
the old quarrel about the Bishop’s rights respecting St. Ethelbert’s
fair broke out again between the citizens and Bishop Bennett.
He spent large sums on the restoration of the Bishop’s Palace.
Bishop Bennett was buried on the north side of the choir, where
his tomb remains with effigy.

Francis Godwin, A.D. 1617-1633, translated to Hereford
from Llandaff, which preferment he is said to have obtained
from the Queen on account of his commentary De Praesulibus
Angliae. He also wrote other historical works, including a life
of Queen Mary. To quote again from Fuller, “He was stored
with all polite learning both judicious and industrious in the
study of antiquity, to whom not only the Church of Llandaff
(whereof he well deserved) but all England is indebted, as for
his other learned writings, so especially for his catalogue of
Bishops.” He was buried at Whitbourn, in a residence belonging
to the see of Hereford, on April 29, 1633.

William Juxon, Dean of Worcester, and President of St.
John’s College, Oxford, was chosen to follow Bishop Godwin,
but before consecration was called to London. During his
episcopacy in that see, he was by Bishop Laud’s procurement
made Lord Treasurer of England. Fuller says of his administration
of these duties that “No hands, having so much
money passing through them, had their fingers less soiled
therewith.”

Augustine Lindsell, A.D. 1633-1634, Bishop of Peterborough,
was confirmed on March 24, 1633, but in November
of the following year was found dead in his study.

[pg 106]

Matthew Wren, A.D. 1635-1635, Dean of Windsor, held
a still briefer episcopate, and in the same year as his consecration
to Hereford was translated to Norwich.

Theophilus Field, A.D. 1635-1636, who had been Bishop
of Llandaff and of St. David’s, died a year after his translation,
and thereby saved the diocese the ill effects of a longer term of
servile and corrupt management.

George Coke, A.D. 1636-1646, Fellow of Pembroke Hall,
Cambridge, became Bishop of Bristol in 1633, and was translated
to Hereford in 1636. He was a grave and studious man,
and well loved in his diocese, but in the troubled days of the
Civil War was deprived of his see.

Nicholas Monk, A.D. 1661-1661, who followed, was brother
to the Duke of Albemarle, and provost of Eton. He died in
the December following his consecration, at Westminster, where
he was buried.

Herbert Croft, A.D. 1662-1671. The son of Sir Herbert
Croft, of an ancient family in the county of Hereford, he was
brought up at Douai and St. Omer as a Jesuit, but was restored
to the English Church through the influence of Bishop Morton,
of Durham. He became a determined opponent of Romanism,
and wrote several treatises against it. About this time there
seems to have been an appeal to the nobility and gentry of
the county for help towards restoring the cathedral. Bishop
Croft was buried in the cathedral, and joined to his gravestone
is that of his intimate friend George Benson, the Dean. He
left by his will a sum of money for the relief of widows, and for
apprenticing the sons of clergymen of the diocese.

Gilbert Ironside, A.D. 1691-1701, warden of Wadham
College, Oxford, was translated to Hereford from Bristol. He
died in London, and was buried in the church of St. Mary,
Monthalt. This church was destroyed in 1863, but the Rev. F. T.
T. Havergal succeeded in getting the Bishop’s remains and tomb-stone
removed to Hereford Cathedral a few years later, in 1867.

Humphrey Humphreys, A.D. 1701-1712, a Welshman, was
translated to Hereford from Bangor. He is said to have been
a good antiquary. Again, in the early days of the eighteenth
century, was the old contest revived between citizens and Bishop
as to his jurisdiction in respect of the fair of St. Ethelbert.
The episcopal rights remained unaltered, at least in form, down
to 1838, when the privileges were taken away by a special Act[pg 107]
of Parliament, and compensation was made to the Bishop for
the profits arising from the fair privileges, to the amount of 12-1/2
bushels of wheat or its equivalent in money value, according
to the price current. This has now been transferred to the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and the fair limited to two days’
duration.

Philip Bisse, A.D. 1712-1721, translated from St. David’s,
was a man of great munificence, and of the best intentions, of
whom it may be said he spent “not wisely but too well.” He
was entirely devoid of any æsthetic feeling or of architectural
fitness, and in the most religious spirit committed acts of wholesale
sacrilege. He employed, it is said, in the work of restoration
in the palace, the stones of the chapter-house, at that time
much injured, but certainly by no means ruined. He built a
hideous structure intended to support the central tower of the
cathedral, and as a crowning act of magnificent liberality,
presented the church with the most dreadful, ponderous, and
unsuitable altar-piece that could well have been devised. In
an elaborate epitaph in the cathedral his virtues are recorded.
It was in the time of Bishop Bisse that the meeting of the three
choirs of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester first took place.

Benjamin Hoadley, A.D. 1721-1723, translated from Bangor,
was again translated to Salisbury early in 1723. His rule over
Hereford was too short for him to have influenced it for good
or evil, and his history belongs rather to Salisbury and Winchester.

Hon. Henry Egerton, A.D. 1723-1746, fifth son of the
third Earl of Bridgewater, was chaplain to George I. He is
chiefly to be remembered for an attempt to destroy the early
Norman building adjoining the Bishop’s Palace, and thought to
have been the parish church of St. Mary, each of its two stories
containing a chantry founded by Bishop Hugh Foliot.

Lord James Beauclerk, A.D. 1746-1787, grandson of Charles
II. and Nell Gwynn, a native of Hereford, was the next Bishop.
It was during the last year of his episcopate on Easter Monday,
April 17, 1786, that occurred the fall of the western tower of
the cathedral, causing much injury. The west front of the
church was destroyed, and also a great part of the nave was
seriously injured. The Bishop died eighteen months after this
calamity. The see was next occupied for six weeks only by
the Hon. J. Harley.

[pg 108]

John Butler, A.D. 1788-1802. By birth a German, was
an active political supporter of the Government of the day.

He contributed largely to the repair of the cathedral.

Folliott Herbert Cornewall, A.D. 1802-1808. He was a
member of an ancient family in the county of Hereford.
Translated from Bristol to Hereford, he was again translated
in 1808 to Worcester.

John Luxmoore, A.D. 1808-1815, was translated to Hereford
from Bristol, and again translated in 1815 to St. Asaph.
He helped to establish national schools in the diocese.

Isaac Huntingford, A.D. 1815-1832, warden of Winchester
College, was translated from Gloucester to Hereford,
and still continued his duties at Winchester. During his
episcopate an incongruous painted window was placed by Dean
Carr at the east end of the choir in 1822. He was author of
several classical and theological works. He died April 29,
1832, in his eighty-fourth year, and was buried at Compton,
near Winchester. There is a monument in the Bishop’s cloister
and a window in the south-east transept to his memory.

A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.

Edward Grey, D.D., of Christ Church, Oxford, A.D. 1832-1837.
He was Dean of Hereford in 1831. He was buried in
the choir of the cathedral, eastward of the throne, on July 24,
1837, aged fifty-five years. A brass plate on the wall marks[pg 109]
the spot. There is also a monument to his memory now in
the Bishop’s cloister.

Thomas Musgrave, D.D., A.D. 1837-1847, Fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge; Dean of Bristol; consecrated Bishop of
Hereford, October 1, 1837; promoted to the Archbishopric of
York, December, 1847. He died in London, May 4, 1860,
aged seventy-two years, and was buried at Kensal Green, where
there is a tomb with a short inscription. In York Minster a
monument in the shape of an altar tomb was erected to him,
and in the north choir aisle of Hereford Cathedral are three
stained-glass windows to his memory.

A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.

Renn Dickson Hampden, D.D., A.D. 1848-1868, Fellow
of Oriel College; Principal of St. Mary’s Hall; Regius Professor
of Divinity; and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. He was
appointed in 1847 by Lord John Russell, and for the first time
since the Reformation “a struggle took place between the
recommending minister and a large and influential part of the
clergy and laity of the church, who regarded Dr. Hampden’s
opinions as heretical.”11 Lord John Russell refused to withdraw[pg 110]
the appointment, and it was eventually carried out in spite
of all remonstrances; not, however, until the question had
been taken from the Spiritual Court to the Court of Queen’s
Bench, where the judges were equally divided in their opinion.
He died April 23, 1868, in London, and was buried at Kensal
Green, close to the Princess Sophia. His scholastic philosophy
was said by Hallam to be the only work of deep metaphysical
research on the subject to be found in the English language.

BYE STREET GATE. FROM AN OLD PRINT.

James Atlay, A.D. 1868-1895, second son of the Rev.
Henry Atlay, M.A., formerly Fellow of St. John’s College,
Cambridge. He was born July 3, 1817; graduated at St.
John’s College, Cambridge, of which he was afterwards Fellow,
appointed one of Her Majesty’s Preachers at the Chapel
Royal, Whitehall, 1857; Vicar of Leeds, 1859; Canon of
Ripon, 1861; nominated to Hereford, May 9, consecrated at
Westminster on June 24, and enthroned in Hereford Cathedral,
July 2, 1868. He was succeeded in 1895 by the Right Rev.
John Percival, D.D., the present holder of the see.

PLAN OF HEREFORD CATHEDRAL.

[pg 112]

The dimensions of the cathedral are:—

NEILL AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.