THE CATHEDRAL PROJECT
CATHEDRAL STORIES
Explore any one or all 43 of the cathedrals, which are in alphabetical order for easy access.
Birmingham Cathedral
Unabashedly Baroque, the Cathedral Church of St. Philip was initially a parish church, joining the Cathedral ranks only in 1905, and is one of the smallest of their number. In the early 18th century, Birmingham's burgeoning metal industry prompted building of a larger...
Blackburn Cathedral
The Diocese of Blackburn was carved out of the Diocese of Manchester in 1926, and the parish church of St Mary the Virgin became Blackburn Cathedral. Blackburn asserts evidence of Christian activity since 596. In 1820, when the foundations of the oldest part of the...
Bradford Cathedral
Bradford is one of three Cathedrals in the Diocese of Leeds, the others being Ripon and Wakefield. The present church, the third on the site, was built in the 15th century and incorporated elements from the previous building. Standing high on the hillside above the...
Bristol Cathedral
Most medieval cathedrals grow younger from west to east. The western portion, almost invariably the nave, was built first. Fancy add-ons—choirs, presbyteries and lady chapels—were tacked onto the east as energy, war-free interludes, and funds permitted. Bristol is the...
Bury St Edmunds Cathedral
Bury St Edmunds is a gorgeous little market town in Suffolk, East Anglia with a very colourful history. Originally called Beodericsworth (I'm so glad language has evolved, aren't you?), the Bury part is a derivation of borough though, given the disputes, riots and...
Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral is magnificent in and of itself. Still, it's probably most famous for being the site of the murder of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop who repeatedly butted heads with King Henry II (husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine, a pretty powerful woman in her own...
Carlisle Cathedral
The diminutive Carlisle Cathedral is the most northerly of the medieval cathedrals and larger than only Derby Cathedral, the smallest. Throughout the middle ages, the town of Carlisle was the site of constant border skirmishes between the Scots and the English, and...
Chelmsford Cathedral
The Church of St. Mary the Virgin became Chelmsford Cathedral following a cranky contest in 1913 to choose a suitable site for the new Cathedral to serve East London. Unfortunately, funds proved short, so plans for a new building were quickly abandoned, but in 1923,...
Chester Cathedral
A former Benedictine Abbey set in a walled Norman city, Chester Cathedral, has the works. Its architecture comprises 11th-century Norman to 18th-century Gothic revival and every style in between. Chester, a cathedral city (obviously), has some of the best-preserved...
Chichester Cathedral
If Exeter Cathedral is a sumptuous white wedding gown, Chichester Cathedral is a grey morning suit with a particularly vibrant waistcoat. Chichester Cathedral's predecessor, Selsey Abbey, was founded in 681 by the irascible Wilfred of Ripon, famous for championing the...
Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Good morning and Happy Groundhog Day! Today we are picking up in Oxford and as it's also a Sunday, in place of attending a church service, we will visit Christ Church Cathedral. Lovely spring flowers greet us at the entrance. Christ Church is a joint...
Coventry New Cathedral
What on earth were they thinking? When the war ended in 1945, more than 2 million homes in the UK had been destroyed or badly damaged, leaving millions of people homeless. Transport, infrastructure and industry had all sustained massive damage. Food was in short...
Coventry Old Cathedral
The ruins of the Cathedral Church of St Michael are a haunting site. Built between the late 14th and early 15th centuries, a shell is all that remains following the massive attack by German bombers on the night of November 14, 1940. Originally one of the largest...
Derby Cathedral
Derby is a reasonably recent inductee into the Cathedral ranks—1927, to be precise. That's when the parish church of All Saints became Derby Cathedral. Of the medieval church, only the tower remains. The rest fell victim to the ambitions of the then vicar Michael...
Durham Cathedral
After four lovely days in Northumberland staying at Eshott Hall, we wended our way southward towards Yorkshire. The lively and interesting people we met at Eshott Hall were all from England, and there was no shortage of advice on what stop to make on the relatively short journey. Ripon Cathedral, the town of Durham and its Cathedral, and Beamish all made the list. So many choices – so little time!
Ely Cathedral
As cathedrals go, Ely Cathedral is one of the biggies. Literally, at 537 ft long, but also because of its story, which began in 672. A lot has happened in the intervening 13+ centuries. Not just the usual political squabbling and overly ambitious clerics, but...
Exeter Cathedral
Exeter is a scrumptious frothy wedding cake of a cathedral with the longest continuous vault in Europe. While it retains its sturdy Norman towers, the majority of what we see today is of the exuberant Decorated gothic design and was completed around 1400. Following...
Gloucester Cathedral
When on holiday, some people do pub crawls. I tend more to Cathedral marathons, and Gloucester Cathedral is one of my all time favourites, largely due to the cloisters, the quadrangle of ancillary buildings to the Cathedral proper. Aren't they gorgeous? They were...
Guildford Cathedral
Guildford Cathedral is the last of the Church of England Cathedrals to be built on a new site and one of only three built in the twentieth century—the other two are Coventry and Liverpool. Fearing the worst, particularly in light of my distaste for Coventry, I was...
Hereford Cathedral
On this most poignant of Remembrance days, the centenary of Armistice Day of WWI, let's have a look at the display of ceramic poppies which has been making its way around the UK since August 2014. We visited the Weeping Window display at Hereford Cathedral this past...
Leicester Cathedral
The venerable Church of St Martin, Leicester, was late to the Cathedral party, being elevated to Cathedral status only in 1922. Built on the site of Roman ruins, it is very likely one of the six churches referred to in the Domesday book of 1086. Its namesake is a...
Lichfield Cathedral
On Maundy Thursday we left Fox Cottage in Bretforton and drove to Lichfield. The plan was to see Lichfield Cathedral in the morning and Shugborough Estate, home of the Earl of Lichfield in the afternoon. The best laid plans... We usually confine ourselves to one...
Lincoln Cathedral
In 1307, Lincoln Cathedral's central tower spire was the tallest manmade structure in the world. At a soaring 525 feet, it was higher than the great pyramid at Giza. Unfortunately, a gale brought it down to earth in 1549. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So let's...
Liverpool Cathedral
It's big. Enormous. I'd even go so far as to say it's monstrous, as in "an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly and frightening" monstrous. Except it's not imaginary. It's all too real. Liverpool Cathedral is the largest Cathedral, nay, religious building,...
