One of the huge pictures, painted on wooden panels in the South Transept, depicts the faces of kings and bishops.

Another, in the North Transept, features a range of representations of one Bishop of Chichester, gleaming with gold leaf.

The pictures show the founding of the See of Chichester, and the renewal of the charter by Henry VIII to Bishop Sherburne, with richly-robed figures.

But the wood is visibly cracked and splitting, and an appeal for funds to restore the paintings, by artist Lambert Barnard, is planned.

A small number of the portraits were damaged and blotted out by the rampaging Roundheads, who also caused other damage in the cathedral, defacing tombs, and to the City Cross, after the siege of Chichester in 1642. Some other pictures are believed to have been lost when the wood under them had to be replaced.

It is not yet known yet whether any portraits, or remains of them, are hidden under the blacked-out areas.

"What is simply astonishing, given the fragility of the surface on which they are painted, their age, and their position, is they have survived at all," said director of the Cathedral Restoration and Development Trust, Alison Godfrey.

An appeal will be launched during the year, and it is hoped at least to start on the restoration project, with the advice of expert conservationists specialising in this type of art.

"A specialist in wood conservation from West Dean College is to look at the condition of the wood, first with a view to preserving it, and then to restoring and conserving it," said Ms Godfrey.

No estimate of the likely cost of the work has yet been prepared, but it would almost certainly be a six-figure sum.


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