The Close

 Summary. The layout of The Close has been relatively unchanged since medieval times with a bishop’s palace, deanery, canon houses and lodges for assisting priests occupying the same location. Even restoration from a Civil War gave little change. It is special.

Lichfield (Licitfelda) in the 7th to 9th-centuries probably had some kind of vallum enclosing a hamlet. If it was a ditch and bank it would keep in livestock and keep out wildlife. If it was a defensive earth rampart, it might have resembled the conjectured bank, ditch and palisade fencing reconstructed from excavations around Tamworth and dated 10th-century. Between 1129 and 1135, there is some evidence of a ditch being dug around a coalescing settlement. This was during Roger de Clinton’s episcopate, 1129-48, and plaques around the town attribute the town ditch to his time.[1] His boundary could now be defensive, and separated the second cathedral from the hamlets at Gaia, Sandford and Stowe.  

The Gough Map is the earliest map of Lichfield. Its precise date and authorship are unknown, and is named after Richard Gough, who bequeathed the map to the Bodleian Library in Oxford 1809. Lichfield is not shown with an enclosed wall like Stafford.

 

Possible early medieval layout of Lichfield, c. 1100, much before construction of the town, the Minster Pool and third cathedral. Adapted from A. Sargent[2]

Slater's idea of The Close around the year 1100[3]

Bassetts idea of The Close in 1150,[4]

 

          It is unknown when the area around the cathedral was first used with buildings for the clergy, but it could date to the 10th-century.[5] The Close occupies around 16 acres of a sandstone platform that slopes downwards from northwest to the southeast. According to a late 13th-century description, the cathedral lay between Lemansyche and Way Clife, evidently two roads. Lemonsyche may have been an early name for Gaia Lane, along the north side of The Close and Way Clife may have been the road along the south side of the cathedral. From the mid or late 12th-century a supply of fresh water was piped from springs at Pipe.[6] 

In 1299, around 30 years before completion of the cathedral, Bishop Walter de Langton obtained a licence[7] to strengthen and crenellate the boundary walls. This wall gave security and quiet to Langton’s palace and to the canon’s houses in The Close. In 1317 and 1322, Edward II ordered The Close to be securely defended on his behalf.[8] In 1327, some gentry took refuge in The Close and it seems it was now well defendable. Nine houses were listed in 1380–1, eight were occupied by canons and one by a laywoman. The Close became self-governing in 1441. By then there were 26 ‘mansions’ in The Close including that of the bishop.

Canon’s assisting priests

Where the priests lived in the 13th-century is unknown. In 1314, two courts surrounded by houses were built in the northwest corner of The Close for vicars who sang in the services and gave diverse administration to the cathedral. It was called ‘The Vicarage’, but is now known as the Vicar’s Close. The two courts, north and south, might not have been constructed at the same time, but there were 32 priest assistants working in the cathedral, and it is possible there were around 30 lodgings initially. The south court was renamed ‘Darwin Close’ in 1998. The room over the entry to the Close was a chapel for those vicars who could not access the cathedral. Many lived two to a room and all shared a communal hall. A kitchen is mentioned in 1329. Dendrochronology of timbers in 1, 2, 3, and 8 Vicar’s Close give a date around 1470. A fireplace uncovered in No. 1 has been dated c. 1570. Early 15th-century the houses were repaired and in 1474 was added an infirmary, chapel and muniment room. On the south side of the complex was a latrine with two chambers thought to be for men and women.[9]

AI rendition of a photograph of  houses in The Vicar’s Close together with a medieval priest.

Bishop’s Palace

            A bishop’s ‘old hall’ existed in the northeast corner of The Close until Bishop Langton built a palace against the east wall of The Close and probably had it completed by 1299.[10] It was 320 feet long and 160 feet wide. The dean's habitation, adjoining the palace was half the dimensions in length and breadth and the dwellings of the canons were half again in their dimensions. The palace had polygonal towers and turrets modelled on Caernarvon castle and was surrounded by its own wall giving maximum security. Langton built the surrounding wall for his own security; it was equivalent to a castle. See the post, ‘Bishop Langton’s Palace’ for a good description of this lavish complex.

Choristers

Bishop Hales left money in 1490 to build a house for the choristers to live together, and this was thought to have been completed on the north side of The Close c. 1511. Entrance was by a fine gateway built in the 1530s. The houses and gateway were demolished in 1773.

 

A reconstructed plan of The Close showing the Bishop’s Palace, Deanery and Vicar’s Close. The location of the houses for choristers is thought to be against the north wall. The moat extended three sides of The Close, but not on the north side until the 1640s. The area under the red circle would have been guarded.

AI rendition of the gateway to the chorister’s houses.

          St Mary’s house was integrated into the southeast curtain wall and still shows a turret and arrow slit windows.  

St Mary’s house corner.

Chantry priests

          On the south side were built houses for the chantry priests in 1411. The houses surrounded an elongated courtyard with a chapel at the end. At one time there were 17 chantry priests serving at least 13 altars. The priests were near the south door to receive pilgrims and penitents who had been ferried across the middle of Minster Pool. In 1468, Dean Heywood provided better houses with heating and glazing as well as a brewhouse and bakehouse. 

 

          There was much damage resulting from the three years of Civil War, 1643-6. The palace and several houses, especially on the north side, were badly damaged. Five of the 20 houses in the Vicar’s Close were ruined. At the Restoration Bishop Hacket considered the palace beyond repair and chose to occupy a house on the south side of the Close, later the site of no. 19. A new palace was built on the old site in 1687. A new deanery was built in the 1680s, but remodelled c. 1708. Other houses were restored by their ccupants. When Daniel Defoe visited the Close in the earlier 1720s, he was impressed by the 'great many very well-built houses'.[11] An interpretation of the layout of The Close in the 17th-century has been published.[12]

AI rendition of an early photograph of the second Bishop’s Palace. In 1952 it became a Cathedral School.

 

In the late 1730s the chapter voiced concern about tradesmen coming to live in the Close. A glover came in 1728, a weaver in 1730 and 1743, and a tailor in 1754. A printer had his works in the Close in 1752, and there was a joinery and chairmaking business at least between 1755 and 1762. Private schools were run in the later 18th century.[13] By the late 18th-century trees had been planted to mark out a walk along the north and east sides. Houses on the west side of the Vicars’ Close were remodelled to front Beacon Street. Selwyn House was built in 1780 by a canon on the east side, and other houses were built in the west ditch of the Close. In 1800, Newton's College was built on the south side of the road from Beacon Street. It required the demolition of the medieval west gate and a corner house. An Act of 1797 arranged for the dean and six canons to be assigned a particular house and in 1840 this was reduced to four houses. Nearly all the houses in the Close, including the palace, were owned by the dean and chapter.

          The Close layout is one of the best surviving layouts from the Middle Ages.[14] The location of houses for the clergy in the 13th-century is very similar to that in the 18th-century. By the end of the 18th-century people with wealth and stature dominated The Close and gave it status. It included Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802, and Anna Seward, 1742-1809.

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[1] Clinton also fortified Coventry as part of the siege during the Anarchy. A ditch 1.58 m deep and 7.5 m wide has been excavated at the cathedral site in Coventry.

[2] A. Sargent, ‘Early medieval Lichfield. A reassessment’. Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions, (2013), 1–32.

[3] T. R. Slater, ‘The topography and planning of Medieval Lichfield. A critique. South Staffordshire archaeological and historical society transactions for 1984-1985. (1986), 26, 11-35.

[4] [4] S. R. Bassett. ‘Medieval Lichfield: A topographical review. South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society transaction. (1980), 22, 117, Fig. 5B.

[5] A cathedral close is an enclosed precinct surrounding a cathedral, functioning as an ecclesiastical enclave that houses residences, administrative buildings, and communal facilities for the clergy, chapter, and associated staff.

[6] See the post, ‘12th-century Lichfield’.

[7] April 20, 1299 page 409 in Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward I, Volume 3.

[8] J. Gould, Medieval Cathedral and Close. (1981), 1-8.

[9] W. Rodwell, ‘A small quadrangle of low-built houses: The Vicar’s Close at Lichfield’, in Vicar’s choral at English Cathedrals, R. A. Hall and D. A. Stocker, (Oxford: 2005), 61-75.

[10] It might not have been completed until 1314, when Langton visited Lichfield. VCH volume 14, suggests work began on the palace in 1304 and was completed by 1314.

[11] D. Defoe, Tour thro' the Whole Island of Gt. Brit. (1927), ii. 479.

[12] N. J. Tringham, ‘Two seventeenth-century surveys of Lichfield Cathedral Close,’ South Staffordshire Arch. and Hist. Soc. Trans. For 1983-84. (1985), 25, 35-49.

[13] M W Greenslade ed., 'Lichfield: The cathedral close', A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield, (London, 1990), 47-67.

[14] N. Tringham, ‘The houses of The Close and their occupants’. Unpub. paper in the cathedral library, (2006), 21-34.