Canterbury Cathedral: England’s Historic Archbishopric Cathedral
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
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- High
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Anglo-Saxon, English, Norman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page16 sections
History
Canterbury Cathedral, formally the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Christ, Canterbury, is an historic cathedral in Canterbury, United Kingdom, founded in 597 by the Anglo-Saxon Christian mission led by Augustine of Canterbury. Its architecture combines Romanesque, Early Gothic, and late Gothic work, reflecting repeated rebuilding from the seventh century onward. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the senior bishop of the Church of England and the symbolic primate of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Foundation and Anglo-Saxon development
Augustine was sent by Pope Gregory I to lead the Gregorian Mission, an effort to establish Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons. At Canterbury, he restored an earlier Christian church and dedicated it to Jesus Christ, the Holy Saviour. Excavations indicate that an early Anglo-Saxon church was built across a Roman road, probably soon after 597. A larger church, measuring about 49 by 23 metres, replaced it during the ninth or tenth century.
Canterbury became the seat of an archbishop and the principal religious centre of England. After the Danish destruction of Canterbury in 1011, a western apse and westwork were added under Archbishop Lyfing or Archbishop Aethelnoth. A westwork was a substantial western complex that could contain towers, chapels, and ceremonial spaces. The cathedral also became associated with a Benedictine community during the reforms of Archbishop Dunstan. Christ Church Priory was formally established around 997 and became fully monastic under Lanfranc.
The cathedral served both as the archbishop’s seat and as the church of the Benedictine Priory of Christ Church until the English Reformation. Its history also includes royal ceremony. King Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy were married there in spring 1002, and Emma was consecrated queen at the cathedral.
Danish attack and Norman rebuilding
The Danish raids of 1011 caused severe damage to Canterbury. Archbishop Ælfheah was taken hostage and killed at Greenwich on 19 April 1012. He became the first of Canterbury’s five murdered archbishops. A further disaster followed in 1067, shortly after the Norman Conquest, when fire destroyed the cathedral.
Rebuilding began in 1070 under Lanfranc, the first Norman archbishop of Canterbury and formerly the abbot of Saint-Étienne at Caen. The new cathedral was dedicated in 1077. Its design closely followed Saint-Étienne at Caen and formed part of the Norman reorganisation of the English Church. Lanfranc’s building had a nine-bay aisled nave, two western towers, transepts with apsidal chapels, a low crossing tower, and a short quire ending in three apses.
Expansion under Anselm and the rise of pilgrimage
Between 1096 and about 1130, Archbishop Anselm and Priors Ernulf and Conrad enlarged the eastern end. The new eastern arm was raised over a large crypt, doubled the cathedral’s length, and provided a quire, transepts, an ambulatory, and chapels. An ambulatory is a passage that allows movement around the sanctuary. The work was completed under Conrad and consecrated in 1130.
The cathedral’s religious importance changed profoundly after Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered there on 29 December 1170 by four knights associated with King Henry II. The killing followed a prolonged conflict between the archbishop and the king. Becket was canonised in 1173, and devotion to the murdered archbishop transformed Canterbury into a major pilgrimage centre.
Pilgrims came to Becket’s shrine in search of healing and in response to the cult surrounding his relics. Their visits brought wealth to the cathedral and encouraged further building. Canterbury became associated with miracle stories, relics, pilgrim badges, and the literary tradition represented by Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Rebuilding after the fire of 1174
A fire severely damaged the quire in September 1174. Reconstruction began under William of Sens, a French master-mason, and continued under William the Englishman after William of Sens was injured in a fall from the scaffolding in 1179. The quire returned to use by 1180, and the eastern chapels were completed by 1184. The rebuilding introduced pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses, helping establish an important Gothic phase in the cathedral’s development.
The Trinity Chapel and the Corona were constructed for Becket’s shrine and relics. In 1220, Becket’s remains were moved from the crypt to a richly decorated shrine in the Trinity Chapel. The shrine attracted pilgrims for centuries and produced much of the revenue used for later rebuilding.
Reformation and later religious change
Henry VIII ordered the destruction of Becket’s shrine in 1538. Its treasures were confiscated, and Becket’s relics were lost. In 1539, the cathedral and Christ Church monastery surrendered to the Crown during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Tudor suppression of religious houses. The monastic community was expelled, and the cathedral became a foundation of secular canons. A new Dean and Chapter was established in 1541.
During the reign of Elizabeth I, a congregation of Huguenot refugees was granted use of the crypt. Huguenots were French Protestants associated chiefly with the Reformed tradition. The congregation included eighteen Walloon families led by the pastor Hector Hamon. The crypt became known as the Church of the Crypt and served the community for worship, schooling, and textile-related work.
Puritan iconoclasm during the English Civil War damaged the cathedral in 1642 and 1643. The statue of Christ at Christ Church Gate was destroyed, and the gate’s wooden doors were demolished. Repairs continued from 1660 to 1704.
Modern alterations and continuing role
The Norman north-west tower was demolished in 1834 because of structural concerns and replaced by the present Arundel Tower, a Perpendicular-style replica of the south-west tower. This was the last major alteration to the cathedral’s structure. During the Second World War, bombing destroyed the cathedral library, although local fire wardens protected the wooden roof and the cathedral escaped extensive bomb damage. The library was reconstructed in 1954.
A new Martyrdom Altar was installed in 1986 at the site associated with Becket’s murder. A plaque commemorates Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1982, and Antony Gormley’s Transport was installed in the crypt in 2011. The cathedral remains an active Church of England institution, the regimental church of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, and a venue for graduations by the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University.
Canterbury Cathedral, St Augustine’s Abbey, and St Martin’s Church were inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. The cathedral and its precincts also contain numerous Grade I and Grade II* listed buildings, while several precinct structures are scheduled monuments. Its foundation includes the Dean, a chapter of canons, lay canons, choristers, lay clerks, organists, King’s Scholars, preachers, and other officers. The greater chapter has legal responsibility for the cathedral and participates in the formal election of an archbishop when the see is vacant.
Conservation continues because of the cathedral’s age, size, and historical importance. Major work has included repairs to the transept lead roof in 2008, conservation of eight twelfth-century Trinity Chapel windows in 2018, replacement of the nave lead roof in 2018, and the 2016–2022 Canterbury Journey programme of external restoration, landscaping, accessibility improvements, and related conservation.
Remains
Canterbury Cathedral is a cruciform basilica approximately 160 metres long and 47 metres wide, with a central crossing tower about 72 metres high. Its surviving fabric brings together Romanesque masonry, Early Gothic rebuilding, and later Perpendicular work. The cathedral’s physical form preserves parts of several earlier buildings, while its crypts, chapels, transepts, cloisters, and monastic precinct retain evidence of changing religious and institutional functions.
Early churches and Norman fabric
The earliest excavated church had a nave, possibly a narthex or entrance hall, north and south side chapels, and a smaller subsidiary building to the south-west. Its foundations reused Roman stone and crossed a former Roman road. The larger Anglo-Saxon church of the ninth or tenth century had a squared west end and probably a square central tower. Its later westwork included a polygonal apse flanked by hexagonal stair towers, as well as the archbishop’s throne and an altar dedicated to Saint Mary.
Lanfranc’s Norman cathedral was arranged around a nine-bay nave and aisleless transepts with apsidal chapels. The central axis stood about five metres south of that of the earlier church. Surviving Norman fabric includes parts of the eastern plan, lower nave masonry, sections of the west transept, portions of the crypts, and elements incorporated into later structures. The Norman nave and transepts were demolished in the late fourteenth century to make way for the present buildings.
The eastern end and crypts
The early twelfth-century eastern extension included a long quire, eastern transepts, a semicircular east end, an ambulatory, and three chapels. Much of its crypt survives, together with parts of the eastern transepts, stair towers, former quire side walls, and chapels arranged around the ambulatory. These spaces preserve the relationship between the Romanesque quire and the later Gothic extensions.
The quire rebuilt after the fire of 1174 retains some earlier outer walls, which were raised by about 3.7 metres. Caen limestone was used for the reconstruction, with Purbeck marble for the shafts. The eastern chapels and the Corona stand over enlarged Gothic crypt spaces. The eastern crypt is largely five-aisled and incorporates the late-eleventh-century undercroft of the Romanesque quire.
Trinity Chapel and the Corona
Trinity Chapel is a broad eastern extension with an ambulatory, built between 1180 and 1184 to contain Becket’s shrine. Beyond it, the circular Corona, also called Becket’s Crown, forms an axial chapel associated with further relics of the archbishop. The chapels stand over expanded crypt spaces and retain the architectural evidence of the cathedral’s transformation into a pilgrimage church.
The cathedral’s stained glass preserves a programme begun after the fire of 1174. Upper windows in the quire, presbytery, and Trinity Chapel depict the genealogy of Christ. Lower windows in the quire aisles present themes drawn from Christ’s words, while windows in the Trinity Chapel and Corona illustrate miracles associated with Becket. Twelfth-century windows also show the lives of the Anglo-Saxon archbishops Dunstan and Ælfheah. Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century glass survives in parts of the cathedral, and the nave’s west windows include Christ’s genealogy, medieval kings, and the apostles.
Perpendicular nave and transepts
The present nave, aisles, and western transepts were rebuilt on Norman foundations from the late fourteenth century under Prior Thomas Chillenden and the master-mason Henry Yevele. The work used the Perpendicular style, a later English Gothic mode distinguished by strong vertical lines and large window openings. Slender Gothic supports replaced the earlier piers, while a low plinth on the south side was retained from the former aisle wall.
The rebuilt nave and transepts have exceptionally high arcades and lierne vaults, whose short intermediate ribs connect the principal structural ribs. Carved bosses enrich the vaults. The western and eastern transepts create an unusual double-transept arrangement. The eastern transept originated in Anselm’s rebuilding and was heightened during the Gothic reconstruction. The Norman stone floor remained until its replacement in 1786.
Towers, chapels, and cloisters
The central crossing tower was begun in the fifteenth century and completed around 1510. About 72 metres high, it is known as Bell Harry Tower or the Angel Steeple. Its interior has a lantern stage and a vault decorated with the arms of contributors, including Cardinal John Morton and Prior Thomas Goldstone. The south-west tower was rebuilt in 1458, while the present Arundel Tower replaced the demolished north-west tower in the nineteenth century.
The south transept apse was replaced around 1430 by the Chapel of Saint Michael and All Angels, founded by Lady Margaret Holland. The north transept apse was replaced by the Lady Chapel, built between 1448 and 1455. The cloisters were repaired and remodelled from 1396, when lierne vaulting was added. The chapter house, created during the same period, has a wagon-vaulted ceiling and stained glass illustrating Canterbury’s history.
Monastic precinct
The principal monastic buildings lay north of the cathedral, an unusual arrangement. The complex included the great cloister, refectory, dormitory, chapter house, cellarer’s lodgings, infirmary cloister, infirmary hall and chapel, kitchens, hospitality buildings, service buildings, an almonry, and a hospitium for paupers. A herbarium, or green court, and a water system were also part of the precinct. The Norman necessarium, a latrine building, was about 44 metres long and 7.6 metres wide, with 55 seats and running water.
The infirmary hall and chapel were arranged like the nave and chancel of a small church. Beneath the dormitory, a common room known as the calefactory or warming room overlooked the green court. Hospitality buildings were divided among groups for distinguished ecclesiastical and noble guests, ordinary middle-class visitors, and poorer pilgrims and paupers. Stables, granaries, a barn, bakehouse, brewhouse, and laundries stood apart from the sacred buildings.
Sculpture, memorials, and liturgical furnishings
The crypt contains Romanesque columns and capitals, together with later architectural sculpture bearing vegetal, animal, and geometric decoration. Motifs include acanthus foliage, griffins, dragons, monsters, and interlaced ornament. A twelfth-century fresco in Saint Gabriel’s Chapel, discovered in 1879, depicts Christ in Majesty, angels, six-winged seraphim, and scenes connected with the Annunciation and the story of Zachariah, Elizabeth, and John the Baptist.
The north-west transept, traditionally called the Martyrdom, contains the site associated with Becket’s murder. The 1986 Martyrdom Altar stands there with a metal sculpture of a cross flanked by two bloodstained swords, representing the four knights. The cathedral also contains memorials and tombs associated with Henry IV and Joan of Navarre, Edward Plantagenet known as the Black Prince, several archbishops and priors, Lady Margaret Holland and her husbands, and other ecclesiastical and military figures.
The west front contains 53 statues installed mainly during renovations in the 1860s. They represent clergy, monarchs, saints, theologians, and other figures connected with the cathedral and the English Church. Christ Church Gate includes a replacement bronze statue of Christ installed in 1990. Its original towers were removed in 1803, and the gates were restored after their seventeenth-century destruction.
Bells, organ, library, and later art
Twenty-one bells are distributed among three towers. The south-west tower contains fourteen bells cast in 1981, including a tenor weighing approximately 1,767 kilograms. The north-west tower contains the clock chimes and Great Dunstan, which weighs about 3,179 kilograms and is described as the largest bell in Kent. Bell Harry, cast by Joseph Hatch in 1635, weighs about 400 kilograms and serves as a service and opening bell.
The cathedral organ was first built by Henry Willis in 1886 and rebuilt several times. Harrison and Harrison restored and enlarged it between 2018 and 2020, reinstating a fourth manual. The instrument is distributed between the north and south quire aisles and a nave division.
The library preserves about 30,000 pre-twentieth-century books and pamphlets, together with about 20,000 later books and serials. A medieval Bible formerly associated with Canterbury was repurchased in 2018 and renamed the Lyghfield Bible after the monk William Lighfyld. In the crypt, Antony Gormley’s Transport was made from iron nails recovered from the roof of the south-east transept.
