Lichfield Cathedral choir

click photo to enlarge
To the layman the word "choir" has one meaning, namely a group of people who sing collectively. To anyone interested in architecture, particularly that of churches and cathedrals, it has a further meaning - the part of the church in which the divine service is sung by the choir. Thus it refers to a space rather than people. Usually this is in the chancel near the high altar. Quite often the terms chancel and choir are used interchangeably.

Today's photograph shows the gate that leads from the eastern end of the crossing tower into the choir of Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire. Anyone who has visited a number of English cathedrals will know that the richest decoration of such buildings is usually to be found in the chancel and around the high altar. This is the case at Lichfield. However, when I saw the choir and the ornate gates they struck me as exceptionally rich for the British context. This partly due to the efforts of the Victorians who favoured concentrations of colour, shiny metal and paint far more than did most post-medieval churchmen.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Choir, Lichfield Cathedral, Staffordshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 9mm (18mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:6400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3EV

Lichfield Cathedral is number 2...

click photo to enlarge
... in terms of popularity on this blog. On a few occasions I have reviewed my hit counter and noted, in particular, the most popular posts and photographs, and the countries that produce the most hits. Ever since I first did this my blog post showing the nave of Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire has been second in popularity. By a large margin, I must say, from the third most popular, and considerably behind the number one post. I don't propose to list all these again, but I do still wonder what makes Lichfield's cathedral a relative magnet for visitors.

This particular English cathedral is a bit of an oddity in that its two west towers have tall spires, as does its crossing tower: cathedrals with three big spires are very unusual in England. It's also true to say that Lichfield isn't one of the "big" cathedrals in terms of size, popularity, architectural beauty and significance, or visitor numbers. It lags well behind the likes of Canterbury, Westminster, Lincoln, York, Durham etc. And maybe that accounts for it. Perhaps, on the world wide web, Lichfield has fewer photographs and articles than many other cathedrals and therefore the ones that do exist attract relatively more hits.

This photograph of the nave taken on my recent visit is from a slightly different position compared with my earlier effort. And this time I looked very carefully before I pressed the shutter and checked that there wasn't a box in the foreground! I took my shot with a 16:9 aspect ratio in mind to remove some of the nearest seats and give greater emphasis to the repeated verticals of the columns, piers and arches.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:3200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Lichfield Cathedral

click photo to enlarge
I've been doing some decorating of the house recently, although to be more accurate I should say that I've been helping my wife to do it, she being the one who takes the lead in such things. It's only when you do something like this that you realise how fond builders are of approximation. Hang wallpaper and you notice that walls are sometimes very slightly off vertical. Laying floor tiles can lead to the discovery that what you thought was a rectangular room is actually a touch rhomboidal. Tiny imprecisions of this sort don't matter a geat deal in a house, where the rooms are relatively small, vistas are limited, and ones eyes don't often line up one surface or edge against another.

However, in a big building, such as a medieval church, and particularly a cathedral, if you don't get the floor plan right, if lines are not laid correctly, if right angles are a degree or two wrong, then once the building is completed these imperfections are magnified. And, at that point it's a couple of hundred years later, and taking it all down and rebuilding it straight isn't really an option. Such is the case at Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire. The earliest building on the site dated from about 700A.D. Nothing of that remains, and little of its Norman succesor of the C12 is to be seen either. However, the Gothic structure that was built from the 1200s onwards is still very much in evidence, though repaired down the centuries after damage from neglect, falling towers, and the fighting of the Civil War. It was the Gothic masons, it seems, who got the nave and chancel out of line (though they may have been building on the foundations of the Normans). Stand in the nave, as I did for the photograph above, and the leftward lurch of the chancel is evident. So too are the leaning nave piers. Further collapse was averted by the architect, James Wyatt, in the late eighteenth century, by the expedient of replacing the 500 tons of stone nave vaulting with lighter lath and plasterwork in the style of vaulting.

Imperfections aside, I think you'll agree that the view inside Lichfield, with its forest of verticals (and almost verticals) reaching their climax in the pointed arches and vaulting ribs, is magnificent.

photograph & text (c) T.Boughen

Camera: Olympus E500
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm (54mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/5
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A