Bristol Cathedral

“This building speaks a unique and convincing language of its own. It is it is a work of genius by the designer. It is a language infused with ideas that come from far outside the normal interests of the church. Ideas that take us deep into the curious amalgam of machismo and piety known as chivalry.”

In fact, Bristol Cathedral did not become a Cathedral until 1542. Prior to the Reformation, Bristol was an Augustinian community in the Diocese of Worcester and perhaps the most important monastic house in Bristol.

Unlike the three other wealthiest cities in England at the time, Bristol had no single dominant religious institution by the early 14th century. Bristol Cathedral had evolved a powerfully independent and idiosyncratic local architecture tradition.

Like many abbeys of the mediaeval world, Saint Augustine’s Abbey depended for its patronage on a single secular family. The Lords Berkeley made their reputation in the 12th century Bristol and then retired 18 miles to the north of Bristol to the rural splendour of their castle at Berkeley.

The Augustinians Abbey was founded in the 1140s, though the presence of the Anglo-Saxon ‘Harrowing of Hell’ sculpture suggests that the Abbey was not the first church on this site. Saint Augustine was a daughter House of the Abbey of St Victor in Paris, then famed for its learning and led by the theologian Hugh St Victor.

The Abbey’s founder was Robert Fitzhardinge, Henry I’s man in Bristol and the first Lord of Berkeley. Henry II took an interest in the Abbey in the 1160s from which the lower half of the Great Gatehouse and Chapter House dates.

Some time between 1218 and 1222 Adam Locke, the designer of the Wells Cathedral West Front, was lent to Saint Augustine’s Abbey by the Dean of Wells to build a Lady Chapel. This talented designer and Master Mason created a marvellous Lady Chapel in one of the eastern bays of the Cathedral. A marvellous Hall Church had been created. Every castle had a Great Hall of precisely this description. Other Hall Churches existed in England but none on this scale.

This Great Hall was meant to conjure up an image not of a church but a castle. On 9th December 1539, the last Abbot of Bristol handed over to the King’s commissioners the keys to the Abbey of Saint Augustine. Unlike many other cities, Bristol was not originally intended to be part of a new Diocese. However, when it became known to the Burgesses of the City of Bristol that Saint Peter’s Abbey in the rival port of Gloucester was to be made a Cathedral, Bristol citizens petitioned for equal treatment and status.

In 1542, the disused Abbey church in Bristol was designated the Cathedral of the Holy Undivided Trinity Bristol.

In 1629, an organ was mounted on a screen which had been created to divide the new Cathedral into choir and sanctuary, and an area for the congregation to gather.

The organ was replaced by a larger Renatus Harris instrument in 1685, which was later rebuilt in the early 20th century by Walker. This fine heritage instrument is currently being completely refurbished and rebuilt by the Durham firm of Harrison & Harrison. Bristol Cathedral Trust led the fundraising for this organ refurbishment, raising £2,200,000. We are particularly grateful for one single donation of £1,700,000 made by the Harry Crook Trust.

For nearly 300 years, the whole church of Bristol Cathedral with no Nave served a Diocese comprising Bristol and the far-off County of Dorset. Between 1867 and 1888 the Nave was rebuilt in a style reflecting the architecture of the choir.

In 1897, Bristol Diocese was created, extending from the Severn Estuary to Swindon and abutted either side by the Diocese of Gloucester and Bath and Wells.

The Rose Window over the Great West Door in the West End of the Cathedral was refurbished by a generous donation from a Fitzhardinge Society member in 2016 and serves as a wonderful example of the generosity of the Society’s members and Trust supporters who are committed to protecting and preserving the fabric of Bristol Cathedral.