St Thomas Cantilupe (Bishop of Hereford 1275-82) was loved as a pastor and holy man. After his death a large number of miracles took place at his tomb in the north transept – at times even rivalling the cult of the ‘other Thomas’ – Becket of Canterbury. Hereford’s Thomas was canonised in 1320 – one of the last Englishmen to be made a saint before the Reformation. The medieval base of his shrine survived destruction and is still the focus for prayer with our many visitors and pilgrims. This part of the project will re-furbish the Shrine itself, and tell the story of Thomas in two large fabric panels in glowing colours.

St Ethelbert was a Saxon prince who came from East Anglia in about 794 to seek the hand of the daughter of Offa, King of Mercia. Near to Hereford, Ethelbert was murdered – he was brought to the city and buried in what is now the cathedral. Around his tomb, a cult arose and many miracles occurred. Ethelbert is one of the cathedral’s patron saints – the  other being the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pilgrimage to his tomb had declined by the 13th century – a devotion soon to be replaced by that for the newly-canonised Thomas Cantilupe. Ethelbert’s life will be commemorated by a series of icons joined around the pillar at the entry to the Lady Chapel – the possible site of Ethelbert’s shrine.

Thomas Traherne was born in Hereford in about 1636. After studying in Oxford he returned to his home county and became Rector of Credenhill, four miles from Hereford. In 1667 he became private chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in London. Traherne is celebrated as one of the English Metaphysical poets and yet, in his lifetime, only one of his works was ever printed. It was at the beginning of the twentieth century that his poems, until then in manuscript, were published and he took on the mantle of an Anglican Divine. His poetry is probably the most celebratory among his fellow poets, with little mention of sin and suffering and concentrating more on the glory of creation, to the extent that some regard his writing as on the edge of pantheism. He died on 10 October 1674 and, in the most recent revision of the Church of England calendar is celebrated as Poet and Spiritual Writer.