Lichfield Cathedral III: The Furnishings

     In his book, 'English Cathedrals: The Forgotten Centuries' (1980, Thames & Hudson) Gerald Cobb sees the cathedral at Lichfield as having undergone two great disasters since the Reformation; the destruction during the English Civil War and the restoration undertaken by James Wyatt in 1788, when most of Bishop Hacket's work was undone. Some architectural historians, perhaps not so many now, would contend the mid nineteenth century restoration under Sir George Gilbert Scott, which was to sweep away the work of Wyatt and the last remains of Hacket's work, was a third disaster. I don't agree.

     Sadly the result of these repeated dislocations that the cathedral has undergone from the Reformation onwards is that there is now very little left in the way of furnishings from the Middle Ages or for that matter from either either the Hacket or Wyatt restorations. I can't help regret the loss of the Artisan Mannerist choir stalls installed by Bishop Hacket, and the great Corinthian reredos that may have been by Sir Christopher Wren, and stood behind the High Altar. 
     The overwhelming number of monuments and other furnishings date therefore from the early nineteenth century onwards; and the cathedral, (the transepts in particular), has a particularly rich collection of funerary monuments of that period (more than most English cathedrals, I think).  Wyatt's restoration, however much detested(!), may be a manifestation of a change in attitude to the cathedral that occurred at the end of the Long Eighteenth Century, for while there are a small number of memorials from the 17th & 18th century the number of memorials suddenly increased and continued through the 19th century filling the cathedral with good things. Perhaps Scott's work at the cathedral should also be viewed as part of that process.