Mrs Van Rensselaer, in her interesting account of the English cathedrals, says: "In any and every aspect, but more especially when foliage comes close about it, Lichfield's colour assists its other beauties. Grey is the rule in English churches--dark cold grey at Ely, for example; light yellow grey at Canterbury, and pale pearly grey at Salisbury; and although dark greyness means great solemnity and grandeur, and light greyness great delicacy and charm, they both need the hand of time--the stain of the weather and the web of the lichen--to give them warmth and tone; and the work of the hand of time has almost everywhere in England been effaced by the hand of the restorer. Red stone is warm and mellow in itself, and Lichfield is red with a beautiful soft ruddiness that could hardly be over-matched by the sandstone of any land." The plan of the cathedral shows a simple cross, with a chapter-house (joined by a vestibule to the choir) on the north side, and a sacristy on the south side. It may also be noticed that the nave and the choir (including the presbytery) have each eight bays or severies, and that if we regard the bay under the central tower as a double one, the two transepts together have eight bays. Thus the transverse arm of the cross is nearly of the same length as the eastern and the western arms. There is a Lady Chapel at the eastern end of the choir, and there are aisles on each side of the nave and choir and on the eastern side of the transepts. We have already seen that the cathedral has three =Spires=, and this is perhaps its most notable characteristic, for Lichfield is the only church now existing in England with this distinction. The cathedral at Coventry, so long the sister church of the diocese, and so ruthlessly destroyed by Henry VIII., had also three spires; as had Ripon Minster, but these were of lead, and have since been pulled down.