Among the 3,000-4,000 artefacts listed in our inventory, we hold objects of national and international importance. Many of our most significant items are displayed in the Cathedral’s Kings & Scribes exhibition, located in the South Transept. If you have a specific research enquiry concerning the collections, please contact: curator.enquiries@winchester-cathedral.org.uk.
References to general resources and introductions to the collections are listed below.
Silver plate from parish churches across Hampshire is displayed in the Cathedral Treasury, which is open daily to visitors at the West End of the Nave. The objects are on loan to the Cathedral and remain the property of parish churches. They include silver patens, chalices, flagons and alms dishes. See Braithwaite, P.R. (1909) The Church Plate of Hampshire; Oman, C. (1957) English Church Plate, 597-1830; and Schroder, T., ed. (2008) Treasures of the English Church: a thousand years if sacred gold & silver.
The Cathedral has a small collection of Roman, medieval and post-medieval coins, seals and tokens. The collection includes the silver Cnut penny and coinage from the reign of Emperors Constantine, Trajan and Vespasian. See Biddle, M. (2011) The Winchester Mint: and coins and related finds from the excavations of 1961-71 for an introduction to the broader history of coinage in Winchester. For information and enquiries regarding the Eyre collection, now held by the University of Leeds, see https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections/view/2177
Winchester Cathedral is home to one of the largest collections of medieval statuary and stonework outside Westminster Abbey. Notable items include the figure of Ecclesia (located in the Retrochoir); fragments from the Shrine of St Swithun, and the remains of the fifteenth century Great Screen. For an introduction to our collection of medieval sculpture, see Lindley, P. (1993) “The Medieval Sculpture of Winchester Cathedral” in Crook, J. (ed.). Winchester Cathedral: Nine Hundred Years, p.p. 97-122.
Our collection of modern sculpture includes works by Antony Gormley and Peter Eugene Ball. Click here to learn more.
The Cathedral holds a significant collection of wooden objects, dating from the fourteenth century onwards. These include an early Gothic armoire (c.1325- 1350); the Lillebon Panel (c.1315); our sixteenth-century mortuary chests, and the beautifully-carved fourteenth-century misericords found in the Cathedral choir.
