Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Winchester, Hampshire
Winchester Cathedral was the central shrine of Wessex and of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom. The first church was built circa 675 when, after the death of Birinus, his "cathedra" was moved from Dorchester, Oxfordshire to Winchester. Here the King built a church in honour of the Holy Trinity and Sts Peter and Paul. This was destroyed by the Danes. It was rebuilt by Ethelwold who substituted Benedictine monks for the earlier canons. It is thought that its monastic church stood to the north of the present cathedral, which replaced it after it had continued in use for a little more than a century. The present church was begun in 1079 by Walkelin, the first Norman bishop. It was probably finished by Bishop Henry of Blois (d. 1171). The monastery was dissolved in 1539. The Monastic Cathedral became a secular Cathedral in 1542.
