Chichester Cathedral

In 2008, the cathedral community celebrated the 900th anniversary of the building's consecration. Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Canterbury, was invited to preach at a festival eucharist and dedicate the new guest house, which was originally named after Bishop George Bell.

Architecture

thumb|left|Plan of Chichester Cathedral, produced in 1875

thumb|Exterior from southeast

thumb|Exterior from northwest

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

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

Chichester is small for a Norman cathedral when compared to Winchester Cathedral, Ely and Peterborough. Much of the original Norman construction remains in the nave, transept, crossing and adjacent bays of the choir. The elevation rises in the usual three stages of arcade, gallery and clerestory. It is similar to remaining Norman work at Winchester, where the arcade is proportionally low, and rests on solid piers rather than columns. In the gallery above, each wide space is divided into two by a colonnette in a manner typical of Romanesque architecture.

File:Chichester Cathedral Arundel Screen 2, West Sussex, UK - Diliff.jpg|Arundel Screen

File:Chichester Cathedral High Altar, West Sussex, UK - Diliff.jpg|High altar

File:Chichester Cathedral Choir, West Sussex, UK - Diliff.jpg|Choir

File:Chichester North Transept, West Sussex, UK - Diliff.jpg|North transept

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Treasures

thumb|upright|175px|Stained-glass window by [[Marc Chagall]]

The cathedral has many treasures and artworks, the most precious being two carved reliefs dating from the 12th century which are of exceptional rarity among English sculpture.

Earl Collins was installed as Canon Chancellor on 12 October 2025.

Vanessa Baron is Canon Treasurer who was installed on 26 September 2021.

Lay members of the chapter include Howard Castle-Smith and Anita Rolls.

Robert Sherburne, the Bishop of Chichester, founded four prebends known as the Wiccamical prebends in 1524.

Music

The music at Chichester Cathedral is largely led by the organ and the cathedral choir, as there are services daily and on special days in the calendar. Outside the regular services the cathedral also supports all kinds of music both religious and secular. Visiting choirs, who come from the diocese's parishes and elsewhere, sing in the cathedral from time to time. It is common for guest choirs to sing at Evensong during the week.

The cathedral hosts a variety of concerts that, along with those in the evening, includes a popular series of free lunchtime concerts. It provides a venue for visiting artists from across the world as well as those who are locally based, such as the Chichester Singers, who although an independent organisation, have since their formation in 1954, performed all their major concerts in the cathedral.

Organs and organists

thumb|right|Main organ|200px

There has been organ music at Chichester Cathedral almost continuously since the medieval period, with a break during the Commonwealth. There are now five pipe organs of different sizes and styles at Chichester Cathedral, with pipes of the Main Organ dating to the Restoration, the Hurd Organ to the late 18th century and the three most recent organs, the Nave Organ, the Walker Organ, which is a small portable organ in the Baroque style, and the Allen Organ, an early example of a digital electronic organ, dating to the late 20th century.

Several well-known composers, including Thomas Weelkes and John Reading (snr), have served as cathedral organist. Anne Maddocks (assistant organist, 1942–1949) was the first woman in the country to hold such a post in a cathedral, and Sarah Baldock (organist and master of the choristers, 2008–2014) was the second woman to hold the most senior musical post in a Church of England cathedral.

The current organist and master of the choristers is Charles Harrison. The assistant organist is Timothy Ravalde.

Cathedral choir

Chichester Cathedral Choir consists of eighteen choristers and four probationers, all of whom are educated at the Prebendal School (which sits adjacent to the Cathedral precinct and is the Cathedral Choir School), and six lay vicars, who are professional musicians.

During school term the cathedral choir sing at eight services each week. As well as singing, choristers learn the piano and an orchestral instrument, spending at least eighteen hours a week on musical performance. In 2005, the choir made a tour to South Africa. It had been constructed by J. B. Joyce & Co of Whitchurch, with a double three-legged gravity escapement and Westminster chimes ringing on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th bells of the peal. It struck the hour on a bell weighing . The main wheels of the quarter and striking trains were in diameter. The pendulum weight was .

Bells

The tower contains a ring of eight bells with a tenor dating from 1706 cast by Richard Phelps with a weight of . The bells ring in the key of E flat.

In addition there is an hour bell cast by John Taylor & Co from 1877 weighing struck by a hammer of and a service bell from ca. 1399 cast by William Dawe.

Art and popular culture

thumb|left|Chichester Cathedral by [[Joseph Francis Gilbert in 1833|250px]]

The cathedral has been the subject of a number of depictions in art, literature, and television media. Its spire and towers are visible in the 1828 painting, Chichester Canal, by J. M. W. Turner. It is also speculated, by Eric Shanes, that Chichester Cathedral is the subject of one of Turner's colour studies for Picturesque Views in England and Wales. In 1833, Joseph Francis Gilbert produced an oil painting of the cathedral, showing the surrounding cityscape. It was collected by Paul Mellon and gifted to the Yale Center for British Art, which he established, in 1966. John Constable completed his own watercolour of the cathedral in 1824, now located in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms was commissioned for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival at Chichester Cathedral by the cathedral's Dean, Walter Hussey, although the premiere of the piece was in New York City.

The building and grounds are occasionally used as a film location. Credits include Rumpole of the Bailey (s05e03) as "Lawnchester Cathedral", The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (s10e08) as "Marchester Cathedral", and Rosemary & Thyme (s03e02) as "Wellminster Cathedral".

Chichester Cathedral is referenced in s01e10 of Monty Python's Flying Circus: one of Ron Obvious's tasks to gain public fame involves eating the cathedral. He is shown brushing his teeth, putting on a bib, and flexing his jaws, before biting into the corner of the cathedral and breaking his jaw.

Burials

Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond
Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond
Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond
Charles Gordon-Lennox, 7th Duke of Richmond
James Hargraves

Wildlife

The cathedral is a nesting site for peregrine falcons, which use a crenellated turret at the base of the spire. Three female and one male chick were hatched in April 2009. During the nesting season live video of the chicks is shown inside the cathedral and on the website.

Explanatory notes

References

External links

The Chichester Customary, 1948