Ely Cathedral The relief scenes were built into the wall, so each face or statue was individually hacked off, but leaving many finely carved details, and numerous puzzles as to what the original scenes showed. After the reformation it was redeployed as the Parish Church (Holy Trinity) for the town, a situation which continued up to 1938. The central octagonal tower, with its vast internal open space and its pinnacles and lantern above, forms the most distinctive and celebrated feature of the cathedral. However, what Pevsner describes as Ely's 'greatest individual achievement of architectural genius' came about through a disaster at the
Lichfield Cathedral The octagonal Chapter House, which was completed in 1249 and is one of the most beautiful parts of the Cathedral with some charming stone carvings, houses an exhibition of the cathedral's greatest treasure, the Lichfield Gospels, an 8th-century illuminated manuscript. There were three great sieges of Lichfield during the period 1643–1646 as the cathedral close was surrounded by a ditch and defensive walls it made a natural fortress. The cathedral authorities with a certain following were for Charles I, but the townsfolk generally sided with Parliament, and this led to the fortification of the close in 1643. Robert Greville, 2nd