Architectural Features
MATERIALS: The medieval and the later C19, C20 and C21 work is mainly flint rubble, but has some handmade brick, with stone dressings, decorative stone banding and much flint flushwork.
EXTERIOR: A large, late medieval town church greatly extended and restored in the C19 and C20.
Late C15 West tower rises high above the nave.
Complex C15 West door with ogee label breaking through a square frame with traceried spandrels.
Two-storey C15 South porch with very fine flint flushwork said by Pevsner to be 'among the best in Essex'.
Tudor-arched inner doorway and staircase of 1956.
The C15 South chapel has two C19 square-headed Perpendicular-style windows separated by a restored C15 door with an ogee label.
The South East buttress is topped by a figure of St Peter wearing fishing boots and carrying a modern key by Thomas Huxley-Jones of 1960.
The chancel clerestory, on the medieval chancel, is 1877-8 in Perpendicular style by Blomfield.
The projecting eastern section of the chancel was added in 1926-8 in a C15 style, but it has plain, almost flat, buttresses topped by small gables that are characteristic of Nicholson's style and distinctly C20.
It is slightly higher than the medieval chancel and has matching clerestory windows and a chequered parapet.
The North side of the chancel is dominated by a large, two-storied complex of vestries, former chapterhouse and song school in flint with Tudor-style windows.
INTERIOR: four-bay nave arcades with lozenge-shaped piers and fine mouldings, C15 in origin but much rebuilt in the early C19.
The Tudor Gothic nave ceiling is by Johnson, and has rose-window roundels.
The ribs are supported by female figures between the windows.
The nave aisle roofs are 1899, and are based on C15 fragments.
Tall C15 tower arch.
C15 chancel arch with slender octagonal shafts on the responds.
The three-bay chancel arcades are early C15, but differ from North to South.
A C15 arch leads from the North transept into the North East chapel.
Fittings of this date include Westmoreland slate font on a bronze base and Westmoreland slate altar designed by Potter
Very good C19 and C20 glass.
Four windows in the nave by Archibald Keightley Nicholson after 1927, West window of Sout West chapel also by Nicholson as a war memorial, and the East window of the North (Mildmay) chapel by A K Nicholson studios, 1950-1, replacing bomb-damaged glass.
Figure of St. Peter by John Hutton, 1969.
In South chancel Chapel, Matthew Rudd : incised mural slab, attributed to Francis Grigs, with an upright skeleton between the figures.
In the North East (Mildmay) chapel, Earl Fitzwalter (Benjamin Mildmay), d. 1756, a large standing wall monument with a large urn in a pedimented niche flanked by cherubs and Corinthian columns of Siena marble, signed by James Lovell.
In the outer North aisle, Robert Bownd, d. 1696, a fine wall tablet with Ionic columns, flaming urns and flower garlands.
HISTORY: St Mary's was the parish church of Chelmsford, and is said to have been founded at the same time as the town c.1200.
The church was wholly rebuilt in the C15, probably in several phases, and all traces of any earlier work are lost.
SOURCES Buildings of England: Essex , 201-6 REASONS FOR DESIGNATION The Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin, Chelmsford, Essex is designated at Grade I for the following principal reasons: * A fine medieval town church with excellent flint flushwork on the porch and tower, greatly extended in the C19 and C20. * Very high quality C20 fixtures, reflecting its elevation to Cathedral status in 1913 and subsequent ongoing development. * Extensive survival of Georgian restoration (especially to the nave roof): of high quality and an unusual survival. * Of high interest for the successive phases of restoration, showing evolving approaches to church renewal, and continuing the development right up to modern times. * The church enjoys very strong townscape value, and forms the core of historic Chelmsford. * Very good C19 and C20 glass. * Very good monuments.
The Cathedral is co-dedicated to St Cedd, died 664AD.