St Albans Cathedral
St Albans, Hertfordshire
This is the oldest site of continuous Christian worship in Britain and stands over the place where Alban, Britains first saint, was buried after giving his life for his faith over 1700 years ago.
The present St Michael’s was built in the 10th century over the site of the basilica, the headquarters of the Roman town of Verulamium. St Alban lived within a quarter of a mile of the present church in Verulamium. It was probably here that Alban was tried for being a Christian before he was executed outside the town walls, perhaps where St Albans Abbey now stands. There are no remains of the first Christian buildings on the site, but some time in the 10th century the Anglo-Saxons raised a more enduring structure.
They reused bricks from the ruined Roman town which can still be seen in the arches of the original windows and among the external masonry. The church was later expanded as aisles were added, and the roof was lifted to increase levels of light. Despite these modifications, St Michael’s remains the most extant Anglo-Saxon building in Hertfordshire.
At the Reformation, the right to appoint the vicar of St Michael’s passed from the Abbey to the Bacon family, owners of Gorhambury, the estate immediately to the west of St Albans. Francis Bacon, the famous philosopher and statesman (died 1626), was buried in the church; there is a magnificent statue to him at the left of the high altar. The pulpit, plus the communion table under the arch (both c1600), are thought to have come from Bacon’s Old Gorhambury House.
Highlights include:
- an early medieval interlaced carved stone cross introduced from Italy in the 20th century
- a few medieval tiles in the Lady Chapel
- 14th century brasses
- a 15th century roof and carved corbels
- late medieval paintwork surviving on a rare Doom scene, a nave lancet and a roof beam
- two late medieval doors
- a 15th century octagonal font now known to have been (unusually) carved from a single piece of stone
- a recently rediscovered preReformation altar stone
- a pulpit and table from the late 16th/early 17th century
- a famous 17th century memorial to Francis Bacon
- a royal coat of arms from the reign of Charles II
- 19th century stained glass
- 19th century oak pews largely dating from George Gilbert Scott’s reordering in the 1860s and some of which incorporate early modern linenfold panelling
- a two manual Peter Collins organ (1980)
- eight bells in the tower date from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries