Cathedral Church of St. Mary and St. Ethelbert - Hereford, Herefordshire - Cathedrals on Waymarking.com

"Hereford Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Hereford in Hereford, England. Its most famous treasure is Mappa Mundi, a mediaeval map of the world created around 1300 by Richard of Holdingham. The map is listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The cathedral is a Grade I listed building. The site of the cathedral became a place of worship in the 8th century or earlier although the oldest part of the current building, the bishop's chapel, dates to the 11th century."

SOURCE and further reading - (visit link)

"Hereford Cathedral has been unlucky in a number of ways. Its w front is by Oldrid Scott and not one of his best, the nave is more than half Wyatt’s (from 1788, with, however, considerable restraint), the crossing and parts of nave and chancel are by Cottingham and son (from 1841, with considerable feeling for Gothic), and the E view is dominated by Sir G. G. Scott’s reconstruction (1856-63). Moreover, in distant views of Hereford the cathedral does not dominate the town as do those of Durham and Lincoln or Ely or Wells or Salisbury. The town of Hereford has three church towers, and the two with spires, i.e. those of All Saints and St Peter, are more prominent than the broad crossing tower of the cathedral; for the cathedral has lost its spire and moreover an additional w tower. Its collapse in 1786 started Wyatt on his alterations. And, finally, when one gets near, Hereford Cathedral suffers from the absence of a close proper. King Street and Broad Street run right towards the w front. There are no walls and gates between. Yet now that the approach from High Town and East Street along Church Street has been closed to traffic, one has the sense of approaching a close. And to w, N and E of the cathedral, lawns hold the town at bay. Yet again, the cathedral houses on the N side are part of the town, the Deanery is early C 19, the Cathedral School with its busy new buildings faces the E end, the College of the Vicars Choral has a Georgian stone front towards the chancel, and it is only at the corner of the cloisters and the Bishop’s Palace that a precinctual feeling can be evoked. If the S door from the E walk of the Bishop’s Cloister happens to be open, there is a timeless View of episcopal lawn and elderly cedar of Lebanon, with the river hidden beyond, and Welsh mountains in the distance.

Hereford became a see in the late C 7. A new cathedral was built in the first half of the C11 and burnt by the Welsh. There 15 no ev1dence that Robert de Losinga, Bishop of Hereford from 1079 to 109 5 and brother of the Bishop of Norw1ch, began a new cathedral. Reynelm, Bishop in 1107-15, is called 'fundator ecclesie’ in his obit. He will have begun the present church. A consecration took place between 1142 and 1148, and Bishop Robert of Bethune, who died in 1148, was buried in the cathedral, which, as the chronicle says, ’ipse multa impensa et sollicitudine consummavit’. Of this Norman church the E end is not preserved. Excavations have shown that it had three apses. It also has a chancel of three bays with aisles, and scanty but undeniable evidence brought forward by the late Sir Alfred Clapham points to towers above the E bays of these aisles a German rather than a Norman or Anglo-Norman motif (cf. the destroyed St Maximinus at Trier, the remains of St Lucius at Werden, etc. , and also, influenced by the Empire, Ivrea Cathedral and S. Abbondio at Como in North Italy, and, influenced by North Italy, 5. Nicola at Bari and other South Italian cathedrals). To the w follow transept and crossing, the latter with a tower (now of later date), and a nave of eight bays ending in a front with no tower, but turrets to flank the aisles and flank the nave. There was a single large w portal and any amount of the blank arcading which was such a passion among English masons. A w tower was put on in the early C 14. Its collapse has already been referred to. Before that time the Norman E end had been replaced by a retrochoir widened into E transepts and by a straight-ended Lady Chapel on a crypt. There is no evidence of the date of this work. Style suggests c. 1190 to c. 1230 or 1240. Documents do not exist to confirm, but it has been suggested that the Interdict of 1208-14 explains the change of style between retrochoir and Lady Chapel. Immediately after the Lady Chapel had been completed, the clerestory of the chancel was rebuilt and vaulted. The mid-C 13 seems a reasonable date to assume. Then Bishop Aquablanca (Peter of Savoy, 1240-68) began to rebuild the N transept about 1250 or 1255. Next the enshrining of the saintly Bishop Cantilupe’s remains, first in the N transept in 1287 and later in the Lady Chapel, and the need for a ceremonial route for pilgrims to the shrine, inspired further rebuilding (Morris 1974). Much was done abouto 1290 and after, namely the inner N porch, the remodelling Of the nave aisles and subsequently of the chancel aisles, the completion or rebuilding of the E transepts, and the splendid crossing tower. After that only appendices were provided: two chantry chapels and the outer N porch. The date of the outer porch - 1519 - takes us close to the Reformation.

The cathedral is of greyish pink sandstone from Hollington, of better wearing quality than Worcester’s red sandstone, for instance. The total length now is 360 ft, the height of the tower 16 5 ft."

SOURCE and further reading - The Cathedrals of England: Midland, Eastern And Northern England
Nikolaus Pevsner; P. Metcalf (ISBN 0670801259)