Liverpool Anglican & Catholic Cathedrals
I have a very warm space in my heart for Liverpool. I lived there for 10 years, from 1988 to 1997. It was both one of the best times of my life and one of the worst. For 4 of those years, I could just about see the Anglican Cathedral from my living room window and, on clear days, Wales.
The two cathedrals are at opposite ends of Hope St, and it’s possible to see one from the other.
The Anglican Cathedral or Cathedral of Christ in Liverpool, to give its full name, is despite its design, a 20th-century building started in 1904 and completed in 1978. The architect, Giles Gilbert Scott, won the 1901 completion. Two fun facts about Scott, he also designed the world-famous red telephone box, and he was a Catholic.
In 1910, unhappy with his original design, Scott persuaded the cathedral committee to let him redesign it and the redesign that we see today.
The Cathedral is 207 yards long making it the longest in the world and is the 8th largest overall and is the largest cathedral in the UK. Some of the stained glass is unusual in that it shows some of the people involved in the building of the cathedral and, in the Lady Chapel, shows the role of women in Christianity.
When I went to photograph the cathedral, I decided to experiment and only take 1 lens overall, I’m pleased but I need to revisit and take some more. Here are some photos of the Anglican cathedral.
The MetropolitanCathedral of Christ the King or Paddy’s Wigwam or the Mersey Funnel was designed by Frederick Gibberd, a Protestant, who won the 1959 design competition. Work was started in 1962 and completed in 1967. Gibberd’s design was the 4th for the cathedral in a little over 100 years.
There were two main restrictions on the 1959 competition. The first is that it needed to incorporate the Lutyens crypt and that the congregation of 2,000 could see the altar. Gibberd achieved this by building a platform on the roof of the crypt its foundation and by a circular design.
The cathedral had design and build issues leading to a major refurbishment in the 1990s
Depending on the time of day and weather conditions when you visit, the lighting of the cathedral can look very different. When I was there, the predominate colour was blue. Here are some photos of the Catholic cathedral.
