Norwich Cathedral necessitated rebuilding of the east end and spire but since the final erection of the stone spire in 1480 there have been few fundamental alterations to the fabric. The large cloister has over 1,000 bosses including several hundred carved and ornately painted ones. Norwich Cathedral has the second largest cloisters in England, only exceeded by those at Salisbury Cathedral. The cathedral close is one of the largest in England and one of the largest in Europe and has more people living within it than any other close. The cathedral spire, measuring at , is the second-tallest in England despite being
Spire (mollusc) Spire (mollusc) A spire is a part of the coiled shell of molluscs. The spire consists of all of the whorls except for the body whorl. Each spire whorl represents a rotation of 360°. A spire is part of the shell of a snail, a gastropod mollusc, a gastropod shell, and also the whorls of the shell in ammonites, which are fossil shelled cephalopods. In textbook illustrations of gastropod shells, the tradition (with a few exceptions) is to show the majority of shells with the spire uppermost on the page. The spire, when it is not damaged or eroded, includes