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Comparing Lichfield and Coventry

t. Mary's was built shortly before its sister church in Lichfield with which it shared the diocese. Whereas our cathedral appears to have been a replacement for an earlier Saxon structure, Lichfield's current cathedral was a replacement for a slightly later Norman church, although this itself was built in place of earlier Saxon chapels.

The building of Coventry's cathedral is presumed to have begun soon after Robert de Limesey gained papal authorisation to move the Bishopric here in 1102 and the main structure of the church was estimated to be complete about 125 years later. Construction of Lichfield's cathedral began in 1195 and was finished in the 1330's - approximately a century after St. Mary's had been completed in Coventry.
However, many have quite reasonably speculated that our Coventry church may have had some similarity in design to the beautiful Lichfield Cathedral just 25 miles away and pictured externally and internally here.

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When one visits Lichfield's Cathedral, and walk around to the front, the sight greeting you as you turn around is absolutely breathtaking. With Coventry cathedral's front being about 12 metres wider, one can only marvel at the sight that our medieval townsfolk would have been presented with every day!

Whatever features the two buildings might or might not have shared, it's certainly most probable that the view down the similarly proportioned nave and chancel of our Coventry church would have looked something like this....

The North-West Tower

n the right is a view of Lichfield's north-west tower. One fundamental design difference between the two cathedrals is that the towers of Lichfield are built almost in line with the outer wall of the church, whereas St. Mary's towers stood out to the sides making a wider frontage, although the nave was a similar width at approximately 21 metres internally. This difference in shape becomes more apparent when looking at the plan on the next page.

The photo below shows the remains of Coventry's north-west tower. Only the lower three metres or so are from the original structure but a rough idea can be gained of its shape.

Did it really have spires?

Despite all the speculation, however, there can still be no certainty that St. Mary's had any spires. Iain Soden's Northampton based archaeological team found no evidence of any structural remains of a spire, and when the Channel 4 Television's 'Time Team' did their excavation in 1999 and 2001, they considered from the remains of the crossing pier bases that the columns would not have been substantial enough to support a stone spire the size of Lichfield's.

In the 2003 book, "A History of Coventry", David McGrory suggests a possible similarity with Well's Cathedral (pictured left), the west front of which is comparable with the known design of Coventry's, although Wells' is about 5 metres wider. He also puts forward the alternative possibility of towers topped with a much lighter cupola and pinnacle.

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