The cathedral is situated not far from the centre of business, and the iron fence on one side of its grounds marks the bounds of an important thoroughfare. The ground is not large--perhaps an acre in extent--and is well kept. The cathedral itself was originally an important building, but is not now remarkable for size or beauty. Cromwell destroyed the greater part of the nave. The building is only 137 feet long, but it is 124 feet wide at the transepts, and the height is 75 feet from floor to vaultings. The parapet of the tower is 127 feet from the ground. The cathedral was nearly destroyed by fire in 1292, and the present choir was completed 1350. This fire is said to have consumed thirteen hundred houses. The tower was built in 1401. The edifice was originally dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but Henry VIII., after he had suppressed the priory connected with it, named it the Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Up to that time it had been under the administration of twenty-nine different bishops,--many of them men of note, of whom it would be pleasant to speak did our limits not forbid. Owen Oglethorpe, the thirtieth bishop, was noted as the only one who could be prevailed upon to crown Queen Elizabeth, all others having refused to do so. History says that "during the performance of the ceremony he was commanded by the queen not to elevate the host; to prevent the idolatry of the people, and to omit it because she liked it not." It is a question whether he obeyed. Wood says: "He sore repented him of crowning the queen all the days of his life, which were for that special cause both short and wearisome." He was fined $1,250 by the council for not appearing at a public disputation, and was soon afterwards deprived of his office. A worthy and well-known bishop of this cathedral was James Usher, who was appointed in 1642. He was an Irishman by birth, and had since 1625 been Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland. He died March 21, 1655, at the age of seventy-five, and Cromwell ordered him a magnificent funeral, which took place at Westminster Abbey, and the great Protector signed a warrant to the Lords of the Treasury, to pay Dr. Bernard $1,000 to defray the expenses of it. Bishop Usher was a theological writer, noted as the author of the system of chronology which is frequently printed in the margin of the Bible. On the restoration of the church, Richard Sterne was elected bishop. He is celebrated as having been domestic chaplain to the notorious Archbishop Laud, and attending him on the scaffold. He was also a prisoner in the Tower, with several others, on complaint made by Cromwell, that they had used the Cambridge College plate for the king's relief at York; but in 1664 he was translated to York Minster, and died there in 1683.