Sir Thomas Erpingham built the Erpingham Gate in c.1420. following the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Sir Thomas was a hero of that battle, commanding the English and Welsh archers. He is also mentioned in Shakespear’s Henry V. If you look carefully, an effigy of Sir Thomas kneels in a niche high above the roadway , facing outwards towards the City. Moving back towards the west front of the Cathedral, you will notice two new carved statues. These were commissioned to celebrate the millennium and show two figures important in the life of the Cathedral and City. On the right is St Benedict, author of the sixth-century monastic rule which the monks of the cathedral monastery followed.
On the left of the doorway is a statue of Mother Julian, an anchoress and mystic who lived in Norwich in the fourteenth century. For nearly 40 years she lived a life of seclusion in a cell attached to St Julian’s Church. During a previous illness, she received visions and recorded them in one of the great classics of spiritual literature, Revelations of Devine Love. She is also famous for being the first woman to have written a book in English.
Around these statues, the architecture of the west front has been frequently altered. Notable features are the great porch, built by Bishop Alnwick in 1430, and the aisle doors are either side, which appear to be close to their twelth-century originals.
If you have time before entering the Cathedral, take a brief walk along the Upper Close Green, past the statues of Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, until you reach the Ethelbert Gate, built c.1315. It includes an elegant vault over the roadway and completes the Close boundary, which was originally intended to separate the Cathedral from the city.
North Nave Aisle
Here there area number of intriguing features. In the fifth bay, the inscription on the momument Osberto Parsley tells us that he sang at the daily services for 50 years from 1535 until 1585, thereby bridging the entire Reformation period.
Nave
As you enter the nave of the Cathedral from the west front, you may be startled by the sense of both length and height. This feeling of length is increased by the comparative narrowness of the nave and the perspective created by vaulting of the roof. At the time of its completion in 1145, Norwich Cathedral was the largest building in Norfolk and today the nave still shows much of that original work.
Nave Altar and Screen
We come now to the nave sanctuary and the spiralled pillars on either side of the altar. These are significant as they mark the position of the original altar table. They also mark the end of the first phase of construction. The candlesticks on the present altar were donated in 1948 and the cross was made to march by Howard Brown, a former resident of The Close. The nave pulpit was given by Dean Goulburn in 1889 and is intended as a ‘visual aid’.
Behind the nave altar you will see the new choir stalls in 1998. Beyond that you are faced with Bishop Lyhart’s great pulpitum screen, which was significantly restored by Anthony Salvin in the nineteenth century.
Choir and Crossing
Passing beyond the pulpitum screen takes you into an entirely different environment and atmosphere. It is here that the Office is said or sung daily as it has been for over 900 years, with the present Cathedral choirs continuing this long tradition of music in worship.
The choir stalls in fact occupy exactly the same position as those used by the Benedictine community. This part of the building called ‘the choir’ is actually still part of the nave, occupying as it does the two easternmost bays.
North Transept
A fire in the transepts in 1509 led Bishop Nykke to follow his predecessors and replace the wooden roofing with stone vaulting. The scriptural themes of the nave are continued, with the subjects being nearly all from the New Testament.
On the far north wall is the bishop’s door, traditionally his private entrance into the Cathedral. Above the plain Norman arch of this door are triangular decorations sheltering strange and unusual carved heads.
Presbytery
The presbytery is extraordinarily beautiful and its whole shape reflects precisely the liturgical patterns of early Christianity, resonating with early basilicas found elsewhere in western Europe. In fact the basilica of the Imperial Palace in the Roman city of Trier in Germany, built in about the year 300, was a model for the presbytery here in Norwich.
The high altar was placed in the aspe so that the entire community could gather around it to celebrate the Eucharist. At the top of a flight of steps, east of the altar and facing the congregation, stands the Bishop’s throne, modelling the position of the chief official in the ancient basilica.
Norwich is the only cathedral north of the Alps to have kept its throne in the original position.
Ambulatory
Moving north from the presbytery we enter the ambulatory, intended as a place for walking and gaining access to the small chapels. You will see the ‘heavy bridge’ of the reliquary arch, existing to accommodate pilgrims who would have hoped to touch or pray alongside holy relics – the mortal remains of saints.
Despite the paucity of relics in Norwich, the vaulting here has outstanding examples of fourteenth-century painting. The reliquary arch is now used to house the modern treasury.
South Transept
Much restoration work was carried out in the south transept by Anthony Salvin in the 1830’s, particularly in the south wall. To the left of the porch you will find St. Catherine’s Chapel, with its glass door inscribed with quotations from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.
Eliot links the flowers to the ‘still point of the turning world’. This chapel is reserved for silent prayer for visitors and regular worshippers alike.
South Nave Aisle
As you approach from the east, stop with the pulpitum screen to your right. Above in the Norman vaulting you will see the earliest surviving paintings anywhere in the Cathedral, dating from about 1175. This bay was once a Lady Chapel and the work here appears to depict Herbert de Losinga’s ‘Simony’ – paying King William II for his appointment to Bishop.
To the left you will see an unusual Elizabethan monument to Thomas Gooding, reportedly buried in an upright position and reminding us that, ‘as I am now so shall you be’. Take time to read the full inscription.