Shrewsbury Cathedral

Shrewsbury Cathedral stands in the centre of Shrewsbury beside the River Severn. It is the only Roman Catholic cathedral in Shropshire and the mother church of the Diocese of Shrewsbury. The Grade II* building was completed in 1856 after a design by Edward Pugin, son of Augustus Welby Pugin. The cathedral replaced an earlier plan for a larger church with a spire, but weak sand foundations forced a smaller design. Bertram Talbot, 17th Earl of Shrewsbury, funded the final £4,000 cost before his death. In 1956 a centenary Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Francis Grimshaw and five other bishops. The cathedral’s interior was reordered in 1984 and again restored in 2019. During the latest work conservators uncovered 19th-century wall paintings by Joseph Aloysius Pippet beneath layers of modern paint. The paintings are now being returned to view. The cathedral seats three hundred and contains notable stained-glass windows by Hardman & Co. and Margaret Agnes Rope, who also designed the war memorial. The war memorial in the west porch commemorates sixty-three men from the congregation who died in the First World War. It shows a Pietà above a plaque bearing the badge of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. A second plaque marks the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The cathedral occupies a quiet site on Town Walls, close to the historic town wall and the loop of the River Severn. Residential streets surround the building, giving it a calm setting in the heart of the town.