Westminster Cathedral

Westminster Cathedral, the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood on Victoria Street, Westminster, is the Grade I mother church of the Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster, a Neo-Byzantine building of 1895–1903 by John Francis Bentley, consecrated in 1910.

Overview

Historic England lists the cathedral (1066500, Grade I, 1 December 1987, amended 15 February 1994). Cardinal Vaughan commissioned the building; Bentley designed it; the foundation stone was blessed on 29 June 1895; the shell was complete by Bentley’s death in 1902 and the cathedral opened in 1903. Consecration followed on 28 June 1910 once the debt had been cleared under Cardinal Bourne. Fabric is red brick with Portland stone bandings and dressings on a Cornish granite plinth, with concrete foundations and vaults and saucer domes of brick and concrete — three over the nave and one over the sanctuary. A 284-foot campanile rises at the liturgical south-west.

Taking Stock and the listing record an Italo-Byzantine plan: narthex flanked by baptistery and porch, an aisled three-bay nave with aisle chapels, narrow transepts, and an apsed choir and sanctuary. Interior fitting-out continued under John A. Marshall of Bentley’s office. Chapels include the Holy Souls (Bentley’s fully worked designs, mosaics by Christian Symons 1902–3), St George and the English Martyrs, and St Andrew and the Scottish Saints (R. Weir Schultz, 1910–14, with stalls by Ernest Gimson). Eric Gill carved the Stations of the Cross in 1913–18. Mosaic decoration of the nave and sanctuary remains incomplete by design, leaving the brick and concrete structure visible.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1066500
• Westminster Cathedral
• Taking Stock: Westminster Cathedral