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A Lady chapel is a traditional English term for a chapel
Chapel

A chapel is a building used as a place for fellowship and of worship for Christians. It may be attached to an institution such as a large Church , a college, a hospital, a palace, a prison or a cemetery, or may be an entirely free-standing building, sometimes with its own grounds....
 inside a cathedral
Cathedral

A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop. It is a Religion building for worship, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Anglicanism, Orthodox Christian and some Lutheranism churches, which serves as a bishop's seat, and thus as the central church of a dioc...
 or large church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Most large medieval churches had such a chapel, as Roman Catholic ones still do, and middle-sized churches often had a side-altar dedicated to Mary.

Traditionally, a Lady chapel is the largest chapel of the cathedral. Generally the chapel was built eastward of the high altar and formed a projection from the main building, as in Winchester
Winchester Cathedral

Winchester Cathedral at Winchester, Hampshire in Hampshire is one of the largest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and overall length of any Gothic architecture cathedral in Europe....
, Salisbury
Salisbury Cathedral

building_name= Salisbury Cathedral|year_built=|year_end=|year_highest =|location= Salisbury, England|antenna_spire= 123m/404ft*|construction_period = 1220-1258 ...
, Exeter
Exeter Cathedral

Exeter Cathedral, full name Cathedral Church of Saint Peter, is an Anglican cathedral in the city status in the United Kingdom of Exeter, Devon, in the South West England of England and the seat of the bishop of Exeter....
, Wells
Wells Cathedral

Wells Cathedral is a Church of England cathedral in Wells, Somerset, England. It is the seat of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who lives at the adjacent Bishop's Palace, Wells....
, St Albans
St Albans Cathedral

St Albans Cathedral is an Church of England Cathedral church at St Albans, England. At 84 metres , its nave is the longest of any cathedral in England....
, Chichester
Chichester Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, otherwise called Chichester Cathedral, is the seat of the Church of England Bishop of Chichester....
, Peterborough
Peterborough Cathedral

Peterborough Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – also known as Saint Peter's Cathedral – the seat of the Bishop of Peterborough, is dedicated to Saint Peter, Paul of Tarsus and Saint Andrew whose statues look down from the three high gables of the famous West Front....
 and Norwich
Norwich Cathedral

Norwich Cathedral is a Church of England cathedral in Norwich in Norfolk, England dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity....
 cathedrals, in the two latter cases now destroyed.

The earliest English Lady chapel built was that in the Saxon
Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading tribes in the south and east of Great Britain starting from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, lasting until the Norman conquest of England of 1066....
 cathedral of Canterbury
Canterbury

Canterbury lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a local government district of Kent, in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
; this was transferred in the rebuilding by Archbishop Lanfranc
Lanfranc

Lanfranc was Archbishop of Canterbury, and a Lombards by extraction....
 to the west end of the nave
Nave

In Romanesque architecture and Gothic architecture Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and Church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar....
, and again shifted in 1450 to the chapel on the east side of the north transept
Transept

Full descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram.'For the periodical go to The Transept....
.






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A Lady chapel is a traditional English term for a chapel
Chapel

A chapel is a building used as a place for fellowship and of worship for Christians. It may be attached to an institution such as a large Church , a college, a hospital, a palace, a prison or a cemetery, or may be an entirely free-standing building, sometimes with its own grounds....
 inside a cathedral
Cathedral

A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop. It is a Religion building for worship, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Anglicanism, Orthodox Christian and some Lutheranism churches, which serves as a bishop's seat, and thus as the central church of a dioc...
 or large church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Most large medieval churches had such a chapel, as Roman Catholic ones still do, and middle-sized churches often had a side-altar dedicated to Mary.

Traditionally, a Lady chapel is the largest chapel of the cathedral. Generally the chapel was built eastward of the high altar and formed a projection from the main building, as in Winchester
Winchester Cathedral

Winchester Cathedral at Winchester, Hampshire in Hampshire is one of the largest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and overall length of any Gothic architecture cathedral in Europe....
, Salisbury
Salisbury Cathedral

building_name= Salisbury Cathedral|year_built=|year_end=|year_highest =|location= Salisbury, England|antenna_spire= 123m/404ft*|construction_period = 1220-1258 ...
, Exeter
Exeter Cathedral

Exeter Cathedral, full name Cathedral Church of Saint Peter, is an Anglican cathedral in the city status in the United Kingdom of Exeter, Devon, in the South West England of England and the seat of the bishop of Exeter....
, Wells
Wells Cathedral

Wells Cathedral is a Church of England cathedral in Wells, Somerset, England. It is the seat of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who lives at the adjacent Bishop's Palace, Wells....
, St Albans
St Albans Cathedral

St Albans Cathedral is an Church of England Cathedral church at St Albans, England. At 84 metres , its nave is the longest of any cathedral in England....
, Chichester
Chichester Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, otherwise called Chichester Cathedral, is the seat of the Church of England Bishop of Chichester....
, Peterborough
Peterborough Cathedral

Peterborough Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – also known as Saint Peter's Cathedral – the seat of the Bishop of Peterborough, is dedicated to Saint Peter, Paul of Tarsus and Saint Andrew whose statues look down from the three high gables of the famous West Front....
 and Norwich
Norwich Cathedral

Norwich Cathedral is a Church of England cathedral in Norwich in Norfolk, England dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity....
 cathedrals, in the two latter cases now destroyed.

The earliest English Lady chapel built was that in the Saxon
Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading tribes in the south and east of Great Britain starting from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, lasting until the Norman conquest of England of 1066....
 cathedral of Canterbury
Canterbury

Canterbury lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a local government district of Kent, in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
; this was transferred in the rebuilding by Archbishop Lanfranc
Lanfranc

Lanfranc was Archbishop of Canterbury, and a Lombards by extraction....
 to the west end of the nave
Nave

In Romanesque architecture and Gothic architecture Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and Church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar....
, and again shifted in 1450 to the chapel on the east side of the north transept
Transept

Full descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram.'For the periodical go to The Transept....
. The Lady chapel at Ely Cathedral
Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral is the principal Church of the Diocese of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England, and the seat of the Bishop of Ely. It is known locally as "the ship of the The Fens", because of its prominent shape that towers above the surrounding flat and watery landscape....
 is a distinct building attached to the north transept, that was built before 1016. At Rochester
Rochester Cathedral

Rochester Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a Norman architecture church in Rochester, Kent. Bishop of Rochester is second oldest in England: only Canterbury is older....
 the Lady-chapel is west of the south transept.

Probably the largest Lady-chapel was that built by Henry III
Henry III of England

Henry III was the son and successor of John of England as King of England, reigning for fifty-six years from 1216 to his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester....
 in 1220 at Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey

The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, which is almost always referred to popularly and informally as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic architecture Church , in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster....
, which was wide, much in excess of any foreign example, and extended to the end of the site now occupied by Henry VII's Lady Chapel.

Among other notable English examples of Lady-chapels are those at Ottery-St-Mary, Thetford, Bury St Edmund's, Wimborne, Christ church, Hampshire; in Compton Church, Surrey, and Compton Martin
Compton Martin

Compton Martin is a small village within the Chew Valley in Somerset and civil parish in the North Somerset unitary authority in England. It lies between Chew Valley Lake and Blagdon Lake, north of the Mendip Hills, approximately south of Bristol on the A368 road Weston-super-Mare to Bath, Somerset....
, Somersetshire, and Darenth, Kent, it was built over the chancel. At Croyland Abbey
Croyland Abbey

Crowland Abbey is a Church of England parish church, formerly an abbey church in Crowland in the England county of Lincolnshire.History...
 there were two Lady-chapels.

Lady-chapels exist in most of the French cathedrals and churches where they form part of the chevet; in Belgium
Belgium

* A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....
 they were not introduced before the 14th century; in some cases they are of the same size as the other chapels of the chevet, but in others probably rebuilt at a later period, they became much more important features, and in Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
 and Spain
Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
 during the Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 period constitute some of its best examples.

See also

Roman Catholic Marian churches
Roman Catholic Marian churches

Throughout history, Roman Catholics have continued to build churches to venerate the BVM. Today, a large number of Roman Catholic churches dedicated to the Blessed Virgin exist on all continents, and in a sense, the progress of Roman Catholic Marian church architecture tells the unfolding story of the development of Mariology ....