Westminster Cathedral London, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

TQ 2979 SW CITY OF WESTMINSTER ASHLEY GARDENS SW1

99/15 The Metropolitan Cathedral Church of the Most Precious Blood (Wesminster Cathedral)

GV I

the address shall be amended to read: "ASHLEY PLACE (south side) - Westminster Cathedral" and the description shall be amended to read as follows:

Roman Catholic Cathedral. Commissioned by Cardinal Vaughan: built 1895-1903 to the designs of J F Bentley; consecrated 1910; interior fitting-out continued by John A Marshall of Bentley's office. Red brick, Portland stone bandings and dressings on Cornish granite plinth, with concrete foundations and vaults. Saucer domes of brick and concrete, three over nave and one over sanctuary. Narthex flanked by baptistery and porch, aisled 3-bay nave with 4 aisle chapels to (liturgical) north and three to south, where western one is subsituted by base of 284ft campanile; narrow two-bay transepts beyond which the apsed choir and sanctuary is flanked by apsed and aisled chapels. Sacristry to rear. Free Byzantine style. Complex west facade stepping forward in lower stages with central entrance in semi-circular arch with decorative voussoirs, columned jambs and mosaic by Robert Anning Bell in tympanum and sculptured medallions of 12 Archbishops of Canterbury. Blind round-arched arcading to upper tier, flanked by polygonal towers with corner buttresses supporting domes. Two-storey wings to either side with round-arched arcading and plate tracery. Further domes over the polygonal corner turrets to the banded bulk of the nave. Square campanile with polygonal buttressing at top supporting cupola. Side elevations with Diocletian windows, paired round-arched and plate traceried windows divided by angular buttresses in each bay; these rise behind flat roof from less moulded ground-floor aisles, and similarly the gabled transepts are shallowly moulded. Sanctuary towers are polygonal with shallow, blind arcading and onion domes over corner buttresses. Three-bay sacristry with Diocletian windows to ground floor, round-arched lancets above. The interior has never been completed, yet is magnificent - the nave for its volume and (especially) the chapels for their wealth of enrichment, most of it mosaic in keeping with Bentley's intention and much of it to his design. The walls lined with veined marble in cream and green to springer level. The brickwork above left rough for future mosaics where not yet installed. Narthex, for which Bentley left complete designs, with columns of Norwegian granite and marble floor. Organ by Henry Willis and Sons over. Nave has broad galleries over aisles, supported at the centre of each bay by paired monolithic columns, the Carrara marble capital of each being a different design. Stations of the Cross by Eric Gill, 1913-18. Pulpit remodelled and enlarged 1934 by L H Shattock. Rood by Christian Symons. Statue of St Peter copied from that at St Peter's, Rome, c.1900. Pendant lights of 1909. Aisle chapels separated by further single columns of rare marble. The Chapel of the Holy Souls completed to Bentley's fully worked out designs, in black and white marble and with carefully overseen mosaics by Christian Symons 1902-3. Altarpiece shows Christ enthroned. Marble floor 1906, bronze gilt grille 1908. Chapel of St George and the English Martyrs, also developed as a war memorial from 1915; largely designed by Marshall with altarpiece by Eric Gill, 1946. Figure of St George by Lindsay Clarke. Shrine to St John Southworth (1592-1654), reintered here in 1930. Apsed chapel of St Joseph with fine altar by Marshall, and monolithic panels of c.1992. On south side, from the west the baptistery, with font by Bentley. Statue of St John the Baptist. Marble screen and steps lead to the Chapel of St Gregory and St Augustine, with altarpiece by Henry Holliday set into design by Bentley (drawn up in detail by him and which he later simplified) with mosaics by Clayton and Bell 1902-4. Chapel of St Patrick and the Sa